
SAMUEL H. SCUDDER 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Slielf_-.Gl.U544 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



FRAIL CHILDREN OF THE AIR 



EXCURSIONS INTO THE WORLD 
OF BUTTERFLIES 



BY 



SAMUEL HUBBARD SCUDDER 




mtMM^mm: 




H\^a 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY flUt^ 

1895 



Copyright, 1895, 
By SAMUEL HUBBARD SCUDDER. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S, A. 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 



NOTE 

The following papers are a small selection, for 
the general reader, of those published in the au- 
thor's " Butterflies of the Eastern United States 
and Canada," — a work so costly as to reach rela- 
tively few, and one which was mainly addressed to 
the specialist. 

As far as possible, these papers have been di- 
vested of technical details and in many cases revised 
or extended, to bring them up to date. Each is 
wholly independent of the others ; but though they 
do not pretend to form a consistent whole, it is 
believed that the perusal of these fragments will 
show, as well as a more elaborate treatise, that 
there is as much to be learned from the study of 
the lives and structure of our own every-day but- 
terflies as can be gleaned in any other branch of 
natural history. 

To gain for our butterflies a deeper interest and 
closer attention on the part of the observing public 
is the simple object of the present volume. 
Cambkidge, Mass., April 13, 1895. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Explanation of Plates vii 

I. Butterflies in disguise ; a study of mimicry 1 
II. The struggle for existence in the genus 

Basilarchia 22 

in. Deceptive devices among caterpillars . 38 
IV. Butterflies as botanists .... 47 
V. The names of butterflies . . . .56 
VI. Color-relations of chrysalids to their sur- 
roundings 63 

VII. The White Mountains of New Hampshire 

AS A home for butterflies . . .71 

Vni. Butterfly sounds 88 

IX. Nests and other structures made by cat- 
erpillars 100 

X. Postures of butterflies at rest and asleep 108 
XI. The eggs of butterflies . . . .114 
XII. Psychological peculiarities in our butter- 
flies 120 

XIII. Social caterpillars 127 

XIV. The fixity of habit in butterflies . . 135 
XV. How butterflies pass the winter . . 139 

XVI. The oldest butterfly inhabitants of New 

England 145 

XVII. Protective coloring in caterpillars . 154 

XVIII. Aromatic butterflies 163 

XIX. The procession of the seasons . . . 178 



^ 



vi CONTENTS 

XX. The ways of butterflies .... 181 

XXI. Butterflies at night and at sea . . 187 

XXII. Some singular things about caterpillars . 194 

XXIII. Where did the butterflies common to the 

Old and the New World originate ? 206 

XXIV. Antigeny; or sexual diversity in butter- 

flies 216 

XXV. Lethargy in caterpillars .... 226 

XXVI. A BUDGET OF CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT CHRYSA- 

LiDs 232 

XXVII. DiGONEUTISM IN BUTTERFLIES .... 242 

XXVIII. Periodicity in the appearance of butter- 
flies . . 253 

XXIX. Color preferences of butterflies, and the 

origin of their color .... 256 

XXX. The friends and associates of caterpillars 263 

XXXI. Butterflies of the past .... 267 

Index to names of insects 277 



EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 



OPPOSITE PAGE 



■' Plate 1. — Basilakchia arthemis 32 

Fig. 1, Egg magnified ; Fig. 2, A spray of willow with 
caterpillars of different ages feeding upon it, two of the 
youngest on their perches on a detached leaf. The egg, 
of natural size, is shown at a, a bunch of riffraff at b, 
and the hibernaculum at c. Fig. 3, Chrysalis. 
The butterfly is shown on the next plate. 
Plate 2. — Butterflies of the White Mountains . . 80 
Fig. l,Pieris oleracea. Fig. 2, Basilarchia arthemis. Fig. 
3, Polygonia faunus. 
Plate 3. — Nests of Butterfly Caterpillars .... 104 
Fig. 1, Nest of Thanaos juvenalis on scrub-oak. Fig. 2, 
Nest of young Thanaos persius on poplar. Figs. 3- 

5, Nests of Euphoeades troilus at successive stages of 
growth on spice-bush. Fig. 6, Nest of Epargyreus tity- 
rus on Gleditschia. Fig. 7, Nest of Aglais milberti, 
when full grown, on nettle. Fig. 8, Nest of Vanessa 
huntera on Gnaphalium, formed of the petals entangled 
in web. 

Plate 4. — Eggs of Butterflies 116 

Fig. 1, Pontia protodice. Fig. 2, Pholisora catullus. Fig. 
3, Bunch of eggs of Laertias philenor on a tendril of 
Aristoloehia. Fig. 4, Inverted column of eggs of Po- 
lygonia interrogationis. Fig. 5, Epargyreus tityrus. Fig. 

6, Cercyonis nephele. Fig. 7, Speyeria idalia. Fig. 8, 
Anthocharis genutia. Fig. 9, Brenthis myrina. Fig. 10, 
Anosia plexippus. Fig. 11, Erora laeta. Fig. 12, Eury- 
mus philodice. Fig. 13, Rusticus scudderi. Fig. 14, 
Strymon titus. 

All the illustrations are magnified, excepting Fig. 3, which is slightly reduced. 



viii EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 

\i Plate 5. — The oldest New England Butterflles . . 152 
Fig. 1, Brenthis montinus. Figs. 2-5, Egg, caterpillar, 
chrysalis, and imago of Oeneis semidea. 

The early stages are more or less enlarged. 

\j Plate 6. — Scent-scales or Androconia 176 

Fig. 1, From surface of fore-wing of Argynnis atlantis. 
Fig. 2, From fold of hind-wings of Laertias philenor. 
Fig. 3, From surface of fore-wing of Oeneis jutta. Fig. 
4, From surface of fore-wing of Cyaniris pseudargiolus. 
Fig. 5, Pouch on hind-wing of Anosia plexippus, con- 
cealing androconia. Fig. 6, From surface of fore wing 
of Pieris oleracea. Fig. 7, Portion of one of the veins 
of fore-wing of Speyeria idalia, showing tips of feath- 
ered androconia m.ingled with the ordinary scales. Fig. 
8, Part of surface of fore-wing of Callidryas euhule, 
showing partially erect andronia. 

All the drawings are greatly magnified. 
Plate 7. — Butterflies common to Two Worlds . . 208 
Fig. 1, Vanessa cardui. Fig. 2, Euvanessa antiopa. Fig. 
3, Vanessa atalanta. 
Plate 8. — A poLYGONEUTic and polymorphic Butter- 
fly, Iphiclides ajax 248 

Fig. 1, The spring brood (marcellus). Fig. 2, The sunomer 
brood (ajax). 

Plate 9. — CoLORADAN FOSSIL Butterflies 272 

Fig. 1, Prolibythea vagabunda. Fig. 2, Barbarothea flo- 
rissanti. Fig. 3, Jupiteria charon. Fig. 4, Prodryas per- 
sephone. Fig. 5, Lithopsyche styx. Fig. 6, Apanthesis 
leuce. 

Plate 1, Figs. 2, 3 ; Plate 2, Fig. 2 ; Plate 5, Figs. 3, 4 ; and 
Plate 8, Fig. 1, are reproduced by the author's kind permission 
from Edwards's " Butterflies of North America." 



EKAIL CHILDREN OF THE AIR 



BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE ; A STUDY OF MIMICRY 

Every observer, even tlie most casual, has at 
some time had his attention arrested by the strange 
resemblance of some creature to the object upon 
which it rested ; to this form of imitation the term 
" mimicry " was applied as long ago as 1815 by 
Kirby and Spence, in the introductory letter to 
their treatise on entomology. "You would de- 
clare," say they, "upon beholding some insects, 
that they had robbed the trees of their leaves to 
form for themselves artificial wings, so exactly do 
they resemble them in their form, substance, and 
vascular structure ; some representing green leaves, 
and others those that are dry and withered. Nay, 
sometimes this mimicry is so exquisite that you 
' would mistake the whole insect for a portion of 
the branching spray of a tree." 

It is not a little curious that it was on the very 



2 BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE 

eve of the publication of the " Origin of Species," 
at the meeting of the British Association for the 
Advancement of Science, in 1859, that the first 
attempt was made to collect facts of this nature, and 
to inquire into the laws which regulate them. At 
this meeting the late Mr. Andrew Murray read a 
paper upon the " Disguises of Nature," in which 
he showed that the most perfect imitation of in- 
animate objects occurs, not rarely or exceptionally, 
but in some groups so commonly that the want of 
it might be regarded as the exception, and that the 
concealment of the animal was the plain purpose 
of the disguise. He confesses, however, that he 
cannot tell what law has set in motion such end- 
less provision of protection, and can only suggest 
that it may be found in some force analogous to 
the great law of attraction ; that " like draws to 
like, or hke begets like." 

The theory of natural selection, imjnediately 
afterward proposed by Darwin, was the key to this 
puzzle. Its use for this purpose by Bates, in 
1862, was one of the earliest independent contri- 
butions to the theory from new observations. 
Buried in the depths of a special systematic 
paper, there were presented by Bates some of the 
most striking instances that are known of such 



A STUDY OF MIMICRY 3 

protective resemblance, in which the animals imi- 
tate, not the objects on or near which they live, 
nor such other creatures as are in themselves 
frightful or predaceous, but butterflies quite like 
themselves, to all external appearance as harmless 
and as much in need of protection as they. He 
pointed out, moreover, that there is a special group 
of butterflies (Heliconinae), of vivid coloring and 
slow and easy flight, which are the constant sub- 
jects of mimicry, while the greater portion of the 
mimicking butterflies he observed belonged to a 
very different group (Pierinae), normally white 
and tolerably uniform in color, but which had so 
changed their livery and even the form of their 
wings as closely to resemble the objects they mim- 
icked in brilliancy of color and variegation, and 
even in mode of flight. Some, says he, " show a 
minute and palpably intentional likeness which is 
perfectly staggering." Indeed, the hkeness proved 
so close that even after he became aware of the 
mimicry his practiced eye was often deceived. Or 
if he wandered to a new locality, where occurred a 
new set of Ithomyiae (the most numerously repre- 
sented among the mimicked genera), the Lepta- 
lides (the mimickers) would vary with them so as 
to preserve the mockery band for band and spot 



4 BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE 

for spot. Now his field observations stowed liim 
that the mimicking species belonged to a group 
of butterflies very subject to attack by birds and 
other foes, while the group which they mimicked 
had an offensive odor and apparently a taste 
obnoxious to insectivorous animals, so as to be 
exempt practically from their attacks. This was 
shown partly by their exceptional abundance, 
which did not seem to accord with slow and easy 
flight and conspicuous coloring, features that nat- 
urally would render them an easy prey to their 
enemies. That these butterflies were truly dis- 
tasteful to birds has been shown again and again. 
Thus Belt says, in his "Naturalist in Mcara- 
gua " : — 

" I had an opportunity of proving in Brazil that some 
birds, if not all, reject the Heheonii butterflies, which 
are closely resembled by butterflies of other families 
and by moths. I observed a pair of birds that were 
bringing butterflies and dragonflies to their young, and 
although the Heliconii swarmed in the neighborhood, 
and are of weak flight, so as to be easfly caught, the 
birds never brought one to their nest. I had a stiU bet- 
ter toeans of testing both these and other insects that are 
mimicked in Nicaragua. The tame, white-faced monkey 
I have already mentioned was extremely fond of insects, 



A STUDY OF MIMICRY 5 

and would greedily munch up any beetle or butterfly 
given to him, and I used to bring him any insects that 
I found imitated by others, to see whether they were 
distasteful or not. I found he would never eat the Heh- 
conii. He was too polite not to take them when they 
were offered to him, and would sometimes smell them, 
but invariably rolled them up in his hand, and dropped 
them quietly again after a few minutes. A large spe- 
cies of spider (Nephila) also used to drop them out of 
its web when I put them into it. Another spider that 
frequented flowers seemed to be fond of them, and I 
have already mentioned a wasp that caught them to 
store its nest with. There could be no doubt, however, 
from the monkey's actions, that they were distasteful to 
him." 



Bates very naturally argued that if these offen- 
sive properties gave the Ithomyiae such exemption 
from attack as enabled them to swarm in spite of 
lazy habits and brilliant coloring, then other but- 
terflies living in the same places would gain a cer- 
tain amount of freedom from attack if their flight 
and coloring so nearly resembled those of the offen- 
sive species as actually to deceive insect-eating ani- 
mals, even though they were themselves in no way 
distasteful. 

The fact of a resemblance so close that it is to 



6 BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE 

all appearances a " palpably intentional likeness " 
is impossible to question. But how explain it? 
How could a butterfly change its appearance to 
such a degree, its wings from a uniform color to a 
banded, streaked, and spotted pattern, and at the 
same time lengthen their form and extend the an- 
tennae? " Can the Ethiopian change his skin or 
the leopard his spots ? " 

The answer, as Bates clearly saw, was to be 
looked for in the same direction as when account- 
ing for the assumption by animals of the color of 
their surroundings. Both are produced in the 
same way, and have the same cause and end. It 
is only by keeping in view this tolerably obvious 
truth that we can explain all the freaks of mim- 
icry. " The specific, mimetic analogies," says 
Bates, " are adaptations, — phenomena of pre- 
cisely the same nature as those in which insects 
. . . are assimilated in superficial appearance to 
the vegetable or inorganic substance on which or 
amongst which they live." 

To gain an idea, then, of the processes by which 
the " staggering " examples of mimicry are pro- 
duced, we must look first at the simplest forms of 
protective resemblance. Go to the seashore and 
observe the grasshoppers among the beach grass. 



A STUDY OF MIMICRY 7 

They fly up at your approach, whiz off a rod or so, 
and ahght. Can you see them? They are col- 
ored so nearly like the sands they live upon that 
detection of one at rest is almost impossible. On 
yonder grassy bluff, a stone's throw away, you will 
find none of them, but other kinds equally, or 
almost equally, lost to sight by their harmony with 
their surroundings. What chance of life for either 
if they suddenly changed places ? They would be 
so conspicuous that every passing bird or other 
insectivorous creature would sight them. Of course 
these protective colors have been gained by slow 
steps. Every grasshopper that found its preferred 
food among the sands was liable to be eaten. In 
the long run just those would be eaten which were 
most easily seen. One which varied in coloring in 
never so small a degree, so as to be less easily seen 
than his brother, would live to perpetuate his kind, 
and his brother come to an untimely end ; the pro- 
geny would show the fortunate variation, and be 
more likely to be spared to transmit in increased 
volume the probability of the happy coloring. 
Given, then, a brood of grasshoppers that find 
their preferred food in sandy spots, and unless 
other and more powerful forces act upon them it 
must result, from their liability to be eaten by 



8 BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE 

creatures fond of grasshoppers, tliat in time tliey 
will resemble in coloring the sand on which they 
live ; it is impossible that they should not. Any 
creature not specially protected by nauseousness, 
or habit, or special device of some sort, must in 
the very nature of things, if it is to live at all, 
have some other protection, and that afforded by 
color and pattern is by far the most common. 
The world is made up of eaters and eaten, of 
devices to catch and devices to avoid being caught. 
We may apply the same reasoning to two kinds 
of butterflies subject naturally to the same class of 
enemies ; that is, living in the same region and 
flying at the same time. If one has the slightest 
advantage over the other in the fight for life, by 
being, for instance, distasteful to one class of com- 
mon enemies, so that these forbear to attack it 
after experiment or by instinct (the result of ances- 
tral experiments), and there be among the less 
favored flock, here and there, an individual which, 
under circumstances favoring it, such as distance 
or shadow, may more often than its fellows be 
mistaken by the enemy for one of its distasteful 
neighbors through its possession of a little more 
than usual of a certain tint on a part of the 
wing, a little larger spot here, or more of the sem- 



A STUDY OF MIMICRY 9 

blance of a band there, — bow small soever tbis 
difference may be, it must, by the very laws of 
natural selection, be cberisbed, perpetuated, in- 
creased, by slow but sure steps. Nor is there any 
limit to its increase except its absolute deception 
of the enemy. So long as there is the slightest 
advantage in variation in a definite possible direc- 
tion, the struggle for existence will compel that 
variation. Knowing what we now know of the laws 
of life, mimicry of favored races might even have 
been predicted. 

It is to be presumed that the actual colors found 
in a mimicking butterfly are, with rare exceptions, 
such as existed somewhere in the ancestral form. 
In the case of our own mimicking Basilarchia, for 
example, whose orange ground tint is so totally at 
variance with the general color of the other nor- 
mal members of the group, it will be observed that 
aU the normal species possess some orange. With- 
out this as a precedent fact, such perfect mimicry 
might perhaps never have arisen. Individuals 
among the normal species vary somewhat in this 
particular, so that it is easy to suppose that some 
of the original B. archippus, with more orange 
than usual, may have escaped capture, on occasion, 
from this cause. From such a small beginning, 



10 BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE 

such as one may now see every year in B. asty- 
anax, sprang doubtless the whole story, and at last 
we find a butterfly which has for a ground color 
of both surfaces of the wings an orange which is 
the exact counterpart of that of Anosia plexippus ; 
by reason of which, in all probability, it enjoys a 
freedom from molestation comparable to that at- 
tributed to plexippus, so that it ventures more into 
the open country than its allies, and thus gains a 
wider pasturage and surer subsistence. 

It would seem, then, to be plain that all cases of 
protective coloring and mimetic form come under 
one and the same law, and have been produced by 
the same means (the survival of the best mocker), 
whether the subject imitated be animal, vegetable, 
or mineral. The actual outcome is, indeed, vastly 
more surprising in some cases than in others, — 
in some " perfectly staggering," as Bates says ; 
yet though there be to all appearances a " palpably 
intentional likeness," there is found to be no inten- 
tion in the case so far as mocker and mocked are 
concerned, but the result of a natural selection 
against which neither could even strive, and of 
which neither was ever conscious.^ The process 

1 " Imitation " and " mimicry " both imply intention ; but 
the limits of our language compel us to use figurative 
speech ; we have no word to express unconscious mimicry. 



A STUDY OF MIMICRY 11 

has been a long one, so that in the case of parar 
static mimicry, as that form which involves the 
copying of one's fellows might be termed (or, if 
one prefers an English term, neighborly mimicry), 
we may readily presume far less difference between 
mocker and mocked when the mimicry between 
them first began than now exists between the 
mocked and the normal relatives of the mocker. 
It is argued, indeed, with great show of reason, 
that as the resemblance grew stronger the birds 
became more sharp-sighted, which reflected again 
on the mimicry, and that thus the final departure 
from the normal type was intensified ; but this 
assumption is not necessary. 

So far we have referred only to the first illustra- 
tions of mimicry given by Bates, those which pre- 
sent the simplest, though not the least striking 
forms, involving as they do the widest departure 
of mimetic butterflies from their normal type. 
Let us glance briefly at some other points. 

A new element enters when we find that neigh- 
borly mimicry is sometimes confined to a single 
sex of a butterfly ; that is to say, one sex is of the 
normal color of its allies, while the opposite sex 
departs widely therefrom, and is found to resemble 
closely another and a nauseous butterfly of the 



12 BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE 

same region. Now, as mimicry is clearly only a 
protective device, or rather outcome, we should 
naturally inquire whether either sex was more in 
need than the other of protection from those foes 
against which mimicry could avail anything. 
Plainly, it would be the female, since, were she 
lost before oviposition, just so many eggs would be 
lost with her ; and besides this, her heavier, more 
sluggish flight — a necessity from her burden of 
eggs — makes her an easier prey to insectivorous 
creatures against which mimicry is aimed. Ac- 
cordingly, we find many instances in which the 
female is mimetic and the male normal. Probably 
they are far more numerous than we imagine, and 
many of the exceedingly common differences be- 
tween the sexes, which since Darwin's day we have 
been wont to set down to sexual selection, doubt- 
less are to be attributed to something of this na- 
ture. But there is no known case of parastatic 
mimicry confined to the male sex. On the other 
hand, some of the most vivid and striking exam- 
ples of mimicry are to be found confined to the 
females. There is one example brought forward 
by Trimen which is the most surprising yet pub- 
lished, where not only have two kinds of African 
swallow-tail butterflies, one with, the other with- 



A STUDY OF MIMICRY 13 

out tails, long supposed to be widely distinct 
species, been proved to be male and female, the 
female departing from the type to mimic a Eu- 
ploeid butterfly, but the male is found to have no 
less than tbree distinct wives, eacb mimicking a 
different kind of Euploeid characteristic of the 
region inhabited by mocker and mocked, and each 
very different from the husband ; while an allied 
male, formerly thought to be the same as the pre- 
ceding, keeps a similar harem, similarly mimetic 
of species of Euploeinae prevailing in its districts, 
and, besides, has in one place at least a concubine 
which is not at all mimetic. Surely the play of 
mimicry can go little farther. 

But in all this arises a new difficulty. How is it 
that mimetic quahties, which in a given locaKty 
breed so true, are inherited by one sex only? 
Why do the males escape? Here the question is 
not. Why are the females mimetic? but rather, 
Why are the males not mimetic? To this no sat- 
isfactory answer has yet been given. It has been 
attributed to sexual selection, the females being 
supposed to be of a conservative frame of mind, 
and admitting no variation in their consorts ; but 
this it would be difficult to prove, or, it seems to 
me, to render very probable. 



14 BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE 

This, however, is the view of it taken by Belt, 
who remarks that "it is supported by the fact that 
many of the males of the mimetic Leptalides have 
the upper half of the lower wing of a pure white, 
whilst all the rest of the wings is barred and spot- 
ted with black, red, or yellow, like the species they 
mimic. The females have not this white patch, 
and the males usually conceal it by covering it 
with the upper wing, so that I cannot imagine its 
being of any other use to them than as an attraction 
in courtship, when they exhibit it to the females, 
and thus gratify their deep-seated preference for 
the normal color of the order [tribe] to which the 
Leptalides belong." 

Still another difficidty besets the subject, — a 
difficulty in part recogTiized by Bates. It has 
been the subject of much discussion, but on the 
princij)les supported above is far more easily dis- 
posed of. Bates found not only that the distaste- 
ful Heliconoid butterflies were mimicked by those 
wliich were in e^ddent need of protection, from the 
fact of their being greedily eaten by insectivorous 
animals, but that there were cases of mimicry quite 
as close among the Heliconoid butterflies them- 
selves. Many instances of the same kind have 
since been recognized in other parts of the world. 



A STUDY OF MIMICRY 15 

Here botli mocked and mockers were protected by 
nauseousness, and it was by no means clear to bim 
bow any advantage, tbe fundamental cause of 
variation of tbis kind, was to be gained by sucb 
imitation. Tbe resemblance was so close tbat, 
according to bis own words, " species belonging 
to distinct genera bave been confounded, owing 
to tbeir being almost identical in colors and mark- 
ings ; in fact, many of tbem can scarcely be dis- 
tinguisbed except by tbeir generic characters." 
Bates bimself was inclined to look upon tbese, 
not as cases of par astatic mimicry, but as due " to 
tbe similar adaptation of all to tbe same local, 
probably inorganic conditions." 

But tbis vague explanation bas not been satis- 
factory to otbers, and Wallace and Meldola, and 
particularly Fritz Miiller, bave followed tbe mat- 
ter, and sbown that, if tbe mimicked species 
possesses tbe slightest advantage in the mere 
point of numbers over tbe mimicking, this advan- 
tage is sufficient to produce the mimicry con- 
cerned. It is highly probable, from the experi- 
ments of Fritz Muller and the observations of 
Belt, that the Heliconoid butterflies are simply 
distasteful, not poisonous, to insectivorous animals. 
Muller bas even figured a considerable number of 



16 BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE 

examples of a single species found by him (in 
this instance belonging to the Acraeinae, a closely 
allied nauseous group) in which the wings had 
evidently been seized by insectivorous birds, for 
they show great gaps in their wings, such as a 
bill would make upon them. By such seizures 
many of the distasteful butterflies doubtless per- 
ish, and Meldola shows very clearly by mathe- 
matical analysis that a resemblance between two 
species so close that the experunental seizures 
would be divided between them in the ratio of 
their numbers gives an advantage decidedly in 
favor of the scarcer species. Or, as Wallace 
puts it, " if two species, both equally distasteful, 
closely resemble each other, then the number of 
individuals sacrificed is divided between them in 
the proportion of the squares of their respective 
numbers." If the rarer species is only one tenth 
as numerous, it wiU benefit in the proportion of 
one hundred to one. 

Exactly the same argument can be applied 
to examples of mimicry between two species where 
neither is distasteful. These cases, though less 
conspicuous, are probably more numerous than 
those of which we have been speaking ; for, on 
the principles that we have laid down, any advan- 



A STUDY OF MIMICRY 17 

tage wMch one species lias over another will be 
attacked by tliat other in every possible way; 
and if there be elements in the structure or mark- 
ings which admit of a closer resemblance between 
the two, and this resemblance will lessen the 
disadvantage under which the weaker species 
labors, then in the very nature of things that 
resemblance must follow, unless other opposing 
elements intervene. For here, at least, the rela- 
tive abundance of the species concerned is an 
essential element. It has been thought by some 
to be also an essential element of all mimicry; 
but not only is there no sufficient reason for 
holding such a view, excepting in cases like those 
last quoted, but it has been asserted by no less 
keen an observer than Fritz Miiller himself, and 
agreed to by others, that the mimicked species 
is not always more abundant than its counter- 
feit; indeed, the mimicking and the mimicked 
species have been found to vary in their relative 
numbers in different localities, sometimes the one, 
sometimes the other, preponderating. But with 
regard to mimicry of one distasteful butterfly by 
another, there may also enter another element ; 
for it is hardly to be believed that all distasteful 
butterflies are equally objectionable to all birds, 



18 BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE 

and it is ob\dous tliat the more distasteful the 
butterfly is to its rapacious foes, by so much more 
has it the advantage in the struggle for life ; 
so that mimicry of one distasteful butterfly by 
another less distasteful is scarcely more surprising 
than the mimicry of a nauseous butterfly by one 
that has not this quality. 

Only one further difficulty remains, and this 
is that, in a few instances, an insect has been 
found differing so peculiarly from its congeners 
as to leave no doubt in the mind that it differs 
in the direction of mimicry when no exact proto- 
type can be found. For example, the butterfly 
of one of the Nymphalinae, with normal dark 
colors and a definite pattern, mil vary altogether 
from that pattern and coloring, to take on the 
livery peculiar to the Euploeinae, a group very 
extensively imitated, when there is found in the 
regions inhabited by this supposed mimicking 
species no Euploeid which it in any way specially 
resembles. In this case but two explanations 
have been offered : one that the mimicked butter- 
fly has not yet been found, another that it has 
for some cause become extinct. But with the 
extinction of the mimicked form we should ex- 
pect speedy extinction of the mimicking, and it 



A STUDY OF MIMICRY 19 

would seem more probable tbat these were cases 
of general mimicry in process of formation toward 
some specific type. At any rate, we need to 
know more defijiitely about these instances before 
we can properly discuss them. They have never 
been collated. 

In support of the general theory of mimicry, 
it may be said that cases are far more common 
in the tropics than in temperate regions, even 
relatively ; and so, too, are insectivorous animals. 
The accounts of travelers in the tropics constantly 
mention the attacks of birds upon butterflies, 
while instances of butterflies being seen pursued 
by birds are vastly more rare in the temperate 
regions. I have never seen one. In the tropics, 
moreover, the birds are aided by a great number 
of other insectivorous animals, such as lizards. 
In our own country, therefore, we should not 
look for many instances of mimicry of any decided 
type. The most striking is unquestionably that 
of Basilarchia archippus, which mimics Anosia 
plexippus, and the closely related case of Basi- 
larchia eros and Tasitia berenice, the last two 
butterflies largely supplanting the first two on 
the peninsula of Florida. In both these instances 
the mimicry is enjoyed by both sexes. A third 



20 BUTTERFLIES IN DISGUISE 

case is found in tlie less close but still striking 
mimicry of our Red-spotted Purple (Basilarchia 
astyanax) by the female of Semnopsycbe diana, 
an instance the more remarkable as tke mimicked 
species belongs to the same genus as our two 
other mimicking forms. 

When we take a general view of mimicry as 
exhibited by one butterfly for another, how 
strange it seems; and what an interesting illus- 
tration it is of the adaptability and pliancy of 
natural forces, that for the evident protection of 
one species in the struggle for existence so exact 
and beautiful a resemblance should be brought 
about ! Consider for a moment that the subjects 
of mimicry are at the final stage of life ; they 
have already passed through nearly all the dan- 
gers to which the species as a species is sub- 
jected, — so rudely subjected that they are indeed 
but a centesimal, or even less, rarely or never 
more, of those brought into the world with them. 
During the earty period of their life they were 
exposed to vastly more dangers than they can 
now experience. At times they were absolutely 
helpless, without the power of movement. They 
are now endowed with powers of flight sufficient 
to thwart the purpose of many a foe ; yet it is in 



A STUDY OF MIMICRY 21 

just this period that these special and extraor- 
dinary provisions for their safety and for the 
accompKshment, so far as the species is concerned, 
of the end of their life are given them. All this 
has been brought about for the sole purpose of 
prolonging their aerial life for the exceedingly few 
days which are necessary for pairing and the 
deposition of eggs. The more we contemplate so 
strange and perfect a provision, and the means 
by which it is accomplished, the more are we 
impressed with the capabilities of natural selec- 
tion, and begin to comprehend how powerful an 
element it has been in the development of the 
varied world of beauty about us. 



II. 



THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE IN THE GENUS 
BASILARCHIA 

The power of reproduction conceded, tlie univer- 
sal instinct for seK-preservation is the fundamental 
and controlling principle by wMcli tlie perpetuation 
of any kind of animal is successfully readied. Tlie 
uncontrollable maternal instinct of self-sacrifice 
existing in some creatures alone overmasters it, and 
tliis exists only in tbe bigber animals, wbicb, com- 
pared with tbe great mass, are but few in number ; 
and is then in most cases called into play only wben 
tbe creature's life-work is nearly finisbed. No sucb 
instinct occurs among butterflies, nor is in any way 
likely to be found, so tbat " self-preservation " and 
" perpetuation of tbe species " are here, at least 
tbrougb all but tbe closing days of life, practically 
equivalent terms. Tbe " struggle for existence " 
in tbe species and in tbe individual are largely con- 
vertible terms. 

Tbis struggle is tbe perpetual inheritance of tbe 
individual. Tbe individual inherits alike its struc- 



THE GENUS BASILARCHIA 23 

ture aiid its liabits of life, which latter are very 
largely, perhaps almost absolutely, dependent on 
its structure ; its tastes and its propensities ; its 
fears and its devices to circumvent its enemies ; 
all its instincts, which are to a great extent, pos- 
sibly wholly, the entailment of ancestral habits ; 
its very attitudes, whether at rest or in motion. 
Its advantages and its disadvantages are thus 
alike its legacy ; so too the pecuKar means it em- 
ploys to disembarrass itself of these disadvantages. 
This is especially true of the insect in its ear- 
lier stages, where freedom to change the immediate 
surroundings is exceedingly limited or altogether 
impossible, except so far as there is foresight, or 
an instinct marvelously akin to foresight, on the 
part of the creature in an antecedent stage. 

It is of more than usual interest to study the 
means of self-preservation in the genus Basilarchia, 
since there is hardly another genus of our butter- 
flies where throughout its entire life the insect is 
apparently so exposed to its enemies. They are 
all, of their kind, conspicuous objects even to our 
duU eyes, and more than that they are, with the ex- 
ception of the chrysalis, always found in unusually 
conspicuous situations. How then do they manage 
to escape their keen-sighted foes, the birds ; or 



24 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 

their wakeful, indefatigable, persistent enemies 
among the insect tribes, — ichneumons, ants, wasps, 
flies, mites, and spiders ? 

Take first the egg-stage. Every one who has 
attempted to rear butterflies knows what immense 
destruction falls to the lot of any species at this 
stage of its life. Ants and spiders look on eggs 
as delicacies made for their delectation, and there 
is a whole gToup of tiny Hymenoptera, almost too 
small to breathe, one would think, mere specks, 
which live solely upon insects' eggs, piercing them 
with their egg-darts, their progeny living imprisoned 
and feeding on the contents until they have run the 
cycle of their changes. Some attack whole batches 
of eggs, laying one Qgg in each, so that one parasite 
may destroy the entire brood of one butterfly ; 
others lay their all in one or two eggs, and it is to 
this class that those belong which sting the eggs 
of Basilarchia. How does Basilarchia escape this 
danger ? In the first place, the mother rarely lays 
more than one egg in one spot or even on one bush, 
though as many as a dozen or two may occasionally 
be found, where the butterfly's numbers are great 
and they are growing as it were imprudent. Then 
it must be remembered that these parasitic flies 
must be guided less by vision than by touch ; and 



IN THE GENUS BASILARCHIA 25 

again, tliat most insect eggs are laid on the 
broader parts of the leaf on which the young will 
feed ; it is here that the parasite will range in 
quest of prey ; but the eggs of Basilarchia are 
rarely found except at the extreme tips of leaves, 
and in addition the leaves of the food-plants con- 
cerned are all acuminate, some to an excessive ex- 
tent, as in some of the poplars and birches. When 
the parasite has, however, found an egg^ it may well 
be inquired whether she would not be deceived by 
it. It differs from the eggs of all our other butter- 
flies in that it is besprinkled with little flexible fila- 
ments, for all the world like the hairs of some leaves. 
Or if the clothing of the eggs did not deceive, she 
might even then find it difficult of attack, for 
minute as these parasites are, less than half a milli- 
metre long, their bodies would extend across at 
least three of the polygonal cells which regularly 
stud the surface of the Qgg^ and which send forth 
these little filaments at every angle, so that poor 
bewildered Madame must struggle through a weary 
chaparral before she can attain the barren grounds 
at the summit and find a spot to readily insert 
her sting. Yet that she succeeds is only too evi- 
dent to the collector ; the larger part of the eggs 
obtained in the open field which have fallen into my 
hands have been parasitized. 



26 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 

Tliis is its but too partial defense against its 
special enemies. But how about those wandering 
buccaneers, tlie ants, mites, and spiders ? These 
labor under the same visual defects as the direct 
parasites, or sometimes greater ones ; and the 
position of the egg^ remote from their usual hunt- 
ing-ground, must serve as no inconsiderable pro- 
tection ; how gTeat, there are hardly means of 
measurement. Their greatest protection from these 
savages, which cannot fly but must wander cease- 
lessly about on foot in search of prey with satanic 
energy, is undoubtedly in the fewness of their num- 
ber on one plant. The spider that finds two eggs of a 
Basilarchia in one day must be an excellent hunter. 

Escaped at last from these dangers, which only 
last at the most ten days, the caterpillar crawls 
forth from its prison and begins its active life. It 
is a scrawny, juiceless looking tiling, all covered 
with warts, and less than any other newly born 
caterpillar would seem a tempting morsel even to 
an ichneumon or a spider. Yet both make havoc 
with it at this time. To a wandering ichneimion 
contact with an empty egg-shell would probably 
mean, as a result of its inherited wisdom, that 
some nice young caterpillar was about, and the 
neighborhood would be all the morev* thoroughly 



IN THE GENUS BASILARCHIA 27 

ransacked. Caterpillars devouring their egg-shells, 
and so not leaving this " scent " behind them, would 
oftenest escape, and by degrees this habit would be 
perpetuated and fixed ; and so it is here ; almost 
invariably the caterpillar hastens to destroy its 
former prison walls, which it devours to the very 
base, too closely glued to the leaf to be eaten ; 
probably it breathes more freely when that is done. 
But where does it now find itself ? Its food at 
its very feet, — yes ; but in the most exposed posi- 
tion possible. Atop the extreme tip of one of the 
outmost leaves of a spray that projects most freely 
into the sun and air, just where it can most easily 
be seen by the passer by ; this seems to be the case 
nine times out of ten. It is, however, probably the 
safest place from the prowling spiders ; but surely 
not from its flying enemies. What does it do ? 
Retreat down the leaf ? That would be only to 
exchange one danger for another, and on its way to 
a presumed place of safety it would be more sure 
of detection, because a moving object in nature is 
always most easily noticed. No, it eats the nearest 
bit of leaf down to but not including the midrib, 
first on one side and then on the other, and then 
retires to near the tip of the midrib, to digest it ; 
subsequent meals it takes in the same way, moving 



28 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 

with excessive deliberation along its narrow path 
and retiring always to the same spot. On this 
perch it cannot be seen from below, and from the 
sides and above seems almost or wholly a part of 
the denuded midrib to which it chngs ; more par- 
ticularly when the leaves are in motion by the 
wind, as they usually are on the trees on which it 
feeds, particularly in the case of the aspen. 

That this mode of life is on the whole an advan- 
tage to it is rendered probable from the fact that 
there are two cases known, in which it is followed 
very closely by caterpillars of the moth (Noto- 
donta) feeding on the very same plant as sj)ecies of 
butterflies with this habit (one in Europe and one 
in America) ; while the caterpillars of Basilarchia 
employ a further device, the actual import of which 
has been a puzzle. Very soon after birth, when it 
has eaten but a very few swaths down the leaf, the 
little fellow constructs a small and loose packet from 
minute bits of leaf and other rejectamenta, loosely 
fastened to one another and to the midrib, close to 
but scarcely touching the eaten edge of the leaf ; 
and as fast as the leaf is eaten, it removes this packet 
(continually added to until it becomes about as big 
as a small pea) farther and farther down the mid- 
rib away from its perch, always keeping it near the 



IN THE GENUS BASILARCHIA 29 

eaten edge. It should be noted tliat it is so loosely 
attached, the bits of leaf at all possible angles, that 
it is moved by tlie least breath. Meanwhile the cat- 
erpillar has been growing larger and more conspic- 
nons and is thus in greater peril from its enemies. 
There are two possible services that this odd packet 
may render. A spider wandering over the leaf and 
observing its motion may seize it and thinking it 
has a prize, hurry away with it and leave its archi- 
tect unharmed. This seems to me rather a strained 
suggestion, for a wandering spider would probably 
proceed to investigate it on the spot. Another 
explanation seems more probable. It should be 
remembered that the leaves preferred by these 
creatures as food are mostly such as are easily 
shaken by the wind, and as the caterpillar moves 
with the leaf and with all the surrounding leaves 
(in a continual fluttering in the case of the trem- 
bling aspen, and to a less degree in the other food- 
plants), this of itself is a protection to it, as it 
would more readily escape observation as an object 
distinct from the leaves, all being in motion to- 
gether ; but on the more stable leaves, like the 
willow and especially the Rosaceae and the oaks, 
the motion in a feeble wind would not be sufficient 
to be serviceable, and here at least the packet 



30 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 

comes into play. An object in motion among 
otliers at rest is a most noticeable tiling, a fact 
well recognized among animals, as a host of them 
show when they fear being seen. This packet 
attached by loose silken threads moves, as stated, 
with a breath of wind and so would distract atten- 
tion from its architect near by, who has taken pains 
to place it at the farthest remove from his perch, 
while still (to avoid undesirable steps) on his daily 
track. If this be really its object, it is surely one 
of the oddest devices in nature. 

The species of Basilarchia all pass the winter 
while in the caterpillar state and but partly grown. 
The caterpillar has moulted at least once (devour- 
ing its cast-off clothing, by the way, doubtless that 
it may not attract attention) and has to prepare 
against the inclement season. This it does in a 
very shrewd way, which is all the more remark- 
able because no trace or semblance of it is seen in 
caterpillars of the broods that attain their entire 
growth in the same season. When the proper 
time approaches, warned thereto possibly by the 
drjTQess of its food, or by the cooler nights, the 
caterpillar constructs a little nest, sometimes from 
the still unfinished leaf on which it was born, 
sometimes from one which it prepares specially at 



IN THE GENUS BASILARCHIA 31 

greater pains; this is done by eating away or 
biting off tlie unnecessary pa,rts, and leaving on 
either side of the base of the leaf little flaps just 
large enough, when drawn together, bottom side up 
and meeting above, to form a cylinder into which 
it can squeeze ; a projecting shelf is also left 
beyond the opening, on which it may stand when 
ready to crawl in, and upon which it may back out 
in the spring ; the whole of the inside and the upper 
surface of the shelf are then plastered over with a 
dense coating of brown silk and the flaps drawn 
together ; more than that, with strangest foresight, 
the petiole of the leaf is thoroughly fastened to 
the stem by numberless threads passed carefully 
and tightly around both ; into this cylinder it then 
crawls head foremost, completely filling the cavity, 
closing the beveled hinder opening with the 
sloping tuberculate and sharpened terminal seg- 
ments, sure to find itself there when the long night 
of winter is passed. No, not quite sure, for a wasp 
or some other predaceous insect will sometimes tear 
this fine castle open and destroy its single occu- 
pant. Whether it is an additional safeguard or 
not, it is an instructive fact that, at least where 
the winters are most severe, nearly all these 
hibernacula are made out of leaves so near the 



32 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 

ground that the snow covers them with its warm- 
ing mantle ; and what is more, in certain cases 
they so closely resemble the winter buds and 
bursting leaves of the new year that they must 
sometimes deceive their prowling foes of the early 
spring. 

Shortly after it again appears in the spring and 
has fed on the tender buds and just opening leaves, 
it moults again, usually upon the shelf of its 
hibernaculum, but no longer devours its skin, as 
it quits the immediate neighborhood. It now 
changes its livery as well and is a most extraor- 
dinary looking object, withal very conspicuous. 
Dark and light green and cream color strive for 
the mastery and leave it streaked and blotched, so 
that it bears no inconsiderable resemblance, in 
color at least, to the droppings of some birds, a 
circumstance which doubtless serves it as some 
sort of protection. Its body is humped and the 
bosses bear tubercles which give it a somewhat 
repulsive aspect ; especially a pair a little behind 
the head are raised aloft, thickly studded with 
prominences, the effect of which is heightened by 
the creature's habit of arching this part of the 
body, bending its head to the ground and raising 
aloft its hinder part, also studded with roughened 



■ % 



s 




BASILARCHIA ARTHEMIS 



IN THE GENUS BASILARCHIA 33 

processes. Altogether it is a rather hideous beast. 
Then too, if disturbed, it raises the front half of 
its body from the ground and uses it as a kind of 
whiplash, throwing it to one side and the other 
with great violence. When it walks, it moves 
with a slow and cautious tread, its head trembling 
as if it had the palsy. All this is doubtless to 
inspire fear to such enemies as might be tempted 
to attack it, but to how much avail we can hardly 
tell. It is certainly attacked in considerable 
numbers by a parasitic hymenopteron, the young 
of which live within on the juices of the body 
and escape from the chrysalis when that is 
formed. 

The chrysalis, helpless thing, probably hangs 
quite exposed upon the stem of the plant which 
has given the caterpillar nourishment. We know 
it almost entirely from those raised in confine- 
ment. It has an oddly shaped form, with a great 
projection on the back like a Roman nose, and 
is of a dark green or greenish brown color varied 
with cream color, and smooth as if varnished. 
This makes it appear like a hanging lump of bird 
dung, and so again must often prevent its 
being picked off and devoured by some hungry 
bird. 



34 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 

When one tliat lias at last escaped all the perils 
of its youth finally reaches its full development, it 
is even more conspicuous and exposed than before. 
Although now upon the wing and no doubt often 
able to escape a pursuer by some quick movement, 
its natural flight is not swift, and its ordinary 
movements on the wing are a few quick flutters 
followed by a sailing motion which is most favor- 
able to capture. Its colors differ of course in the 
different kinds, and they may in this particular 
be divided into two classes. One effects a deep 
rich black-blue or blackish purple, and is varie- 
gated with light blue and white, the latter partly 
in the form of bands, on some forming a broad bow 
across both wings, rendering them most conspic- 
uous and striking objects. They are, too, of a 
pretty large size, and as they fly mostly in the 
neighborhood of copses or along shaded roadsides 
or forest roads, they seem to render themselves by 
the contrasting background as conspicuous as 
possible. Another class is of an orange brown 
color of greater or less depth, while the veins are 
black, and a black stripe, sometimes accompanied 
by white dots, crosses the wings. These fly in 
more open places, more fully exposed to the sun, 
and are scarcely less conspicuous than their 



IN THE GENUS BASILARCHIA 35 

fellows. All these butterflies live a considerable 
time, and indeed tbe eggs do not mature in the 
bodies of the females until they have been a fort- 
night on the wing ; and then they do not lay all 
their eggs at once, or even within a few days, but 
prolong the operation over many days or even 
several weeks. To deposit all her eggs therefore, 
which is the province of course of the female, she 
must fly amid all the dangers her conspicuous 
colors offer for about a month, a considerably 
longer time than the average of butterflies. Pre- 
vious to egg-laying at least, much of her time is 
spent upon the ground in company with her fellows, 
often in great flocks, engrossed in sucking up 
moisture from the damp earth, from decaying fruits, 
or the droppings of beasts ; and so must become 
a conspicuous and easy prey to her enemies. 

What then is to become of this saving remnant 
of the tribe ? How escape from the dangers 
which it seems to invite ? For the individual 
there would seem to be nothing but chance ; but 
the number of eggs laid under the most favorable 
circumstances or chances is very considerable ; and 
if only a pair of these finally reaches maturity and 
are able to fulfill their functions, the number of 
individuals of the species is maintained. It would 



36 THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 

seem, however, as if even this chance were small 
and as if still further protection were needed. 
And one further protection seems to be afforded in 
some species in a peculiarity of their hfe history. 
Apparently the species of Basilarchia are, at least 
in New England, normally single brooded ; but in 
not infrequent cases, doubtless more frequent in 
southern than in northern parts, a second or 
supplementary brood is formed in one season ; as 
the butterfly lays eggs for some time, and all the 
females are not born at once, the earliest progeny 
of the earliest females may not infrequently be 
able to mature in the same season in time for the 
production of a second brood. This would seem to 
be a provision on the part of nature to give the 
species a better chance. That they need it is 
perhaps evidenced by the fact that the black-veined 
orange species, which are almost universally more 
numerous in individuals than the others, have, in 
regions where one brood is the normal condition 
of their fellows, always two broods. 

But this is not the only advantage the black- 
veined orange species have, so that we cannot 
fairly ascribe their gTcater numbers to this alone. 
Their very colors are an advantage to them, for in 
them they mimic species of another group, the 



IN THE GENUS BASILARCHIA 37 

Euploeinae, which possess a taste and perhaps an 
odor offensive to birds and other insectivorous 
animals ; the mimicry is very striking indeed, and 
is the more remarkable from the fact that the 
northern species resembles the only species of 
Euploeinae found in the region it inhabits, while 
the southern species as well as the southernmost 
examples of the northern species resemble another 
which is more common in the region they inhabit. 
It is indeed possible that one of the normally 
colored species of Basilarchia, one that has least 
conspicuously contrasted colors, though resplendent 
with blue and green, is specially protected by the 
various other devices we have recounted ; for 
certainly it is itself mimicked by one sex of a 
butterfly of another very distinct group, viz., 
Semnopsyche diana. 



m. 

DECEPTIVE DEVICES AMONG CATERPILLAES 

The Kfe of a caterpillar is full of perils from 
birth to maturity. Though often formidable to 
look at, it is nevertheless soft skinned. Though it 
may have a choice place of concealment or even a 
well constructed nest, it must roam at large while 
seeking food ; and there are several periods of its 
life when, to undergo its ecdysis, it must remain 
an entire day or even more, motionless and help- 
less and generally quite exposed. Its main pur- 
pose in life, next to feeding, is not to he seen. 

One of the simplest devices to escape notice is 
that of confining all activities (which include with 
these gluttons scarcely anything but feeding) to 
the night-time and retiring to some concealment 
during the day. This is a very common occur- 
rence with the Satyrinae and Argynnini in partic- 
ular, the ArgjTQnini with their dusky clothing 
retiring to the surface of the ground where they 
are least liable to be seen, the satyrids remaming 



DECEPTIVE DEVICES 39 

perhaps upon the stems or blades of grass or sedge 
which form their food and among which they are 
concealed by their striped attire. Or the retire- 
ment may be to the under surface of a leaf, a very 
common practice, which is exemplified in our own 
fauna by the habit, among others, of such diverse 
butterflies as our Green Comma (Polygon ia 
f annus). Buckeye (Junonia coenia), and the Blue 
Swallow-tail (Laertias philenor). 

A very common mode of concealment, however, 
is the construction of a special nest for the pur- 
pose, within which they remain at all times when 
not feeding, and oftentimes even the greater part 
of their entire lives, feeding as they may do upon 
the nest itself until they have eaten themselves out 
of house and home. A good instance of this last 
propensity is found among the species of Vanessa, 
all of which construct more or less open nests, but 
devour the contents and the structure itself of the 
same. Others forming open nests are some of the 
species of Polygonia, while more complete web- 
concealments are made by the caterpillars of the 
American Tortoise-shell (Aglais milberti) and 
some of the Melitaeini. The mere partial curling 
of a leaf so as to conceal the sides of the creature 
Ijdng thereon answers the purpose of the Tiger 



40 DECEPTIVE DEVICES 

Swallow-tail (Jasoniades glaucus), wMle its neigh- 
bor the Green-clouded Swallow-tail (Euphoeades 
troilns) turns the leaf completely over so that the 
opposite edges touch. But the group which above 
all others contains caterpillars hving in conceal- 
ment is the Hesperidae, the higher Hesperini mak- 
ing an oval inclosure by strong strands of silk 
connecting the edges of leaves at wide intervals, 
while the Pamphilini construct burrow-like nests 
by sewmg together the edges of neighboring blades 
of grass ; hardly an instance is known where one 
of them lives openly. 

Butterfly caterpillars which live exposed have 
many of them special modes of guarding against 
danger, some falling to the ground and curling up 
at the shghtest shock or alarm, such as many of 
the Melitaeini in their later stages. Others fall 
with greater deliberation, first attaching a thread 
to the leaf from which they drop, such as the 
Snout butterfly (Hj^atus bachmanii) and the 
Coral Hair-streak (Strymon titus). Others as- 
sume a sphinx-like attitude which they may retain 
for a long time, as is the case with the Painted 
Beauty (Vanessa huntera) in its earher life, and 
m this they are sometimes aided by the presence 
of a special knobbed process on the hunched por- 



AMONG CATERPILLARS 41 

tions, as in tlie species of Basilarchia. Others 
when disturbed strike witli their mandibles the leaf 
upon which they are resting, as the Red Admiral 
(Vanessa atalanta) and Harris's butterfly (Cincli- 
dia harrisii) are known to do. Or they may move 
their heads from side to side, catching their man- 
dibles in the roughnesses of the leaf, and so pro- 
duce a grating sound, — a very common trick of 
the higher Hesperidae. A curious allied habit is 
found in the Blue Swallow-tail (Laertias philenor), 
which repeatedly taps alternately with its front 
legs upon the leaf when disturbed, — a habit I 
have seen in no other caterpillar. The Monarch 
(Anosia plexippus) again, which, when eating, 
keeps its anterior flexible filaments constantly in 
motion forward and backward, moves them with 
still greater violence when it is in a state of alarm, 
and this must serve as a very considerable protec- 
tion to it. 

Nearly all caterpillars, whether of butterflies or 
moths, will, when disturbed, throw their heads 
violently around from side to side in a threatening, 
angry manner, the head with its hard incasement 
and biting jaws being the most offensive weapon 
in the control of the caterpillar. But it is a very 
curious sight to see how, as impelled by one im- 



42 DECEPTIVE DEVICES 

pulse, the young caterpillars of some of the Nym- 
phalidae, sucli as the Mourning Cloak (Euvanessa 
antiopa), the American Tortoise-shell (Agiais mil- 
berti), and Harris's butterfly (Cinclidia harrisii), 
will move their heads by simultaneous jerks to one 
side and the other, like a regiment of soldiers 
shifting arms. This community of action must be 
a very considerable safeguard, and indeed I am 
inclined to regard the mere presence of caterpillars 
in considerable numbers feeding in company as in 
itself protective, partly because it is most common 
in the highest family and never found in the low- 
est, so that the habit would seem to have grown 
and become intensified by its protective qualities. 
Some certainly of the caterpillars which thus feed 
in company will not be touched by chickens. I 
have several times thrown twigs covered with the 
caterpillars of the Mourning Cloak (Euvanessa an- 
tiopa) into a chicken yard only to the alarm of the 
chickens, they either paying no attention to the cat- 
erpillars as they crawled away, or regarding them 
with evident horror, never once offering to touch 
them ; of course this may be due simply to their 
spinous clothing. But besides the spined cater- 
pillars which are presumably protected by such 
community of action, such as the Mourning Cloak 



AMONG CATERPILLARS 43 

(Euvanessa antiopa), the American Tortoise-sliell 
(Aglais milberti), the Compton Tortoise (Eugonia 
j.-albuni), and the MeHtaeini in their earlier stages, 
we have, even in our own fauna, instances of naked 
caterpillars which enjoy the same means of protec- 
tion, such as the Tawny Emperor (Chlorippe cly- 
ton) and the Blue Swallow-tail (Laertias phile- 
nor), especially in their earlier stages. 

The greatest danger to caterpillars would seem 
to be when they are in motion, as they are then 
more readily detected by insectivorous creatures. 
To guard against such danger, many caterpillars, 
as all the Satyrinae, are excessively slow in their 
movements. Most caterpillars remain absolutely 
still during all times when they are not actually 
eating or on their way to their feeding spots, but 
some have the habit, in passing to and from their 
feeding grounds, of moving with the utmost rapid- 
ity, hurrying as if their safety depended upon it, 
as doubtless it does. Such are all the Argynnini, 
and I have noticed a similar habit in the Gray 
Comma (Polygonia progne). Others, again, 
among the slow movers have a very peculiar trick, 
which I do not remember to have seen mentioned 
by others ; it is a sort of rocking motion, not from 
side to side but forward and backward, moving 



44 DECEPTIVE DEVICES 

forward by little starts ; they seem to glide by lit- 
tle jerks in a very slow and measured way. The 
caterpillars in whicli I Have noticed tbis babit are 
tbe Blue-eyed Grayling (Cercyonis alope), tbe 
Orange Sulpbur (Eurymus eurytbeme), and tbe 
Green-clouded SwaUow-tail (Eupboeades troilus) ; 
it is most conspicuous in tbe last. 

Perbaps of all our caterpillars tbere are none 
wbicb bave so many means of defense in babit or 
protective device as tbe species of Basilarcbia, and 
tbis altogether in addition to tbeir coloring. At- 
tention bas already been dra^NTi to tbis. It may be 
well, bowever, to summarize bere some of tbe more 
peculiar ways by wbicb it protects itself. In tbe 
first place it moves about witb little starts, mucb 
as tbe Green-clouded SwaUow-tail (Eupboeades 
troilus) and tbe otbers we bave mentioned, its 
bead all tbe wbile trembling as if it bad tbe palsy ; 
then, when disturbed, it will throw the front half 
of its body about like a whij), lashing its sides witb 
great violence and fury, an operation wbicb must 
most effectually drive away many of its smaller 
foes at least. These points refer to its active 
movements, but besides we bave its curious babit 
of living upon tbe extremity of tbe uneaten midrib 
of the leaf upon which it is feeding ; its construe- 



AMONG CATERPILLARS 45 

tion of a pellet of riffraff, movable witli every 
breath of wind, apparently to distract attention 
from its presence ; its habit of retiring after feed- 
ing (when a leaf no longer serves its purpose) to 
the twig of the plant upon which it feeds, where it 
is less easily observed ; and its construction of a 
complex hibernaculum in which it passes the win- 
ter, to secure which from falling to the ground it 
securely enwraps the twig of the leaf of which it is 
made with silken cords to the stem. 

Doubtless if the behavior of our other caterpil- 
lars had been followed more closely, many would 
show devices as complicated, various, and interest- 
ing as those of Basilarchia. I have not attempted 
to go outside our own fauna, but here much more 
information is needed. We should not fail, how- 
ever, to mention the almost universal habit of cat- 
erpillars of eating their cast skins, so as to remove 
from their immediate vicinity any traces of their 
presence, a habit the more marked because I be- 
lieve it is not shared by any of those caterpillars 
which live in company, where the numbers are so 
great that escape from observation would be impos- 
sible, and safety lies only in their numbers. Nor 
have I alluded to the special protection afforded to 
many of the Lycaeninae by the presence of their 



46 DECEPTIVE DEVICES 

friendly ants, nor to tlie osmateria or stencli-throw- 
ers of the Papilioninae, by wliich they are spe- 
cially protected, since in both these instances these 
have their seat in physiological processes, which 
are of a widely different nature from the mere hab- 
its under discussion. 



IV. 

BUTTERFLIES AS BOTANISTS 

Knowledge of the food plants of tlie cater- 
pillars of butterflies is of prime importance to one 
wlio wishes to study their life histories ; for al- 
though some species are polyphagous, others are 
the most particular creatures in the world and 
wiU starve to death if they are not suppb'ed with 
just what they want. That this is not always 
the easiest thing to learn may be inferred from 
the frequent mishaps with the most experienced. 
And it is no wonder they are sometimes at fault 
or at a loss, for the one hundred butterflies of the 
eastern United States and Canada, whose food 
plants are known, choose their food from more 
than one third of the families of plants mentioned 
in Gray's Manual of our botany. 

Fifty-two families are represented ; of these, 
thirty-two nourish only members of a single one of 
the four families of butterflies, and as a general 
rule are therefore of minor significance. Excep- 



48 BUTTERFLIES 

tion must here be made, however, to four or five 
of these ; for instance, the Violaceae, which almost 
exclusively supply our Argynnini with food ; the 
Grossulaceae, on which no less than six of our 
Nymphahnae and especially the Vanessini have 
been found; the Cyperaceae, on which several, 
very likely many, of the Satyrids flourish ; the 
Aquifoliaceae, on which several of our Lyeaeninae, 
both Theclini and Lycaenini, feed; and finally 
the Lauraceae, a favorite food plant of the Papi- 
lioninae. 

Twelve families of plants have been found to 
be the food of butterflies of two (and not more 
than two) families of our butterflies, but in most 
of these cases they are only known as the food 
of single species in each family and so assume 
small importance. Yet among them are others 
in which the case is different. Thus the Ruta- 
ceae are known to serve as the food of about as 
many different species of Papilioninae as the Lau- 
raceae, and they are said also to be among the 
food plants of Chrysophanus ; the Betulaceae are 
a common food of several species of Nymphalinae 
and nourish also Jasoniades ; while of the utmost 
importance are the gTasses and sedges, upon which 
nearly all our Satyrinae and Pamphilini live, — 



AS BOTANISTS 49 

a good fourtli of our butterfly fauna, even omit- 
ting the many Pampliilini wliicli doubtless feed 
upon grasses but wliicli are not yet known in their 
early life. 

The families of plants fed upon by all four 
families of butterflies are three in number, and 
with the Eosaceae just mentioned and the Gra- 
mineae, the greatest supporter of caterpillar life, 
must be looked on as the favorite food of butter- 
flies in their early stages. These are the Cupuli- 
ferae and especially the oaks which nourish eight 
species, mostly Lycaenidae and Hesperidae ; the 
Salicaceae, the food of eleven species, five of them 
Nymphalidae, the others equally divided among 
the remaining families ; and the Leguminosae, 
which vie for preeminence with the Gramineae, 
for twenty-three of our species are found upon it ; 
of these, nine are Hesperidae (and perhaps exclu- 
sively Hesperini), seven are Lycaenidae, five Papi- 
lionidae (exclusively Pierinae and indeed Rhodo- 
cerini), and two Nymphalidae. 

More than one third of our butterfly fauna is 
made up of the lowest, least known, and most 
inconspicuous family, the Hesperidae, our mem- 
bers of one tribe of which feed almost exclusively 
on Leguminosae (a few on Salicaceae, Cupuli- 



n 



60 BUTTERFLIES 

ferae, etc.), of the otlier on Gramineae and Cari- 
ces, and of course very decidedly affect the general 
result wlien all butterflies are considered. It is 
entirely owing to them that these two families 
take the first place, though they are by no means 
insignificant in their relation to the other famihes 
of butterflies. For leaving the Hesperidae out 
of consideration, the Rosaceae easily assume the 
first place and hold it alone, while the Legumi- 
nosae and Gramineae still retain such importance 
as to hold the second place, and indeed the high- 
est position there with the Salicaceae, Compositae, 
and Yiolaceae, followed hard by the Cupuliferae, 
Ericaceae, Grossulaceae, and Cruciferae. These, 
then, are the preferred food of the caterpillars of 
our eastern American butterflies. 

Two facts brought out from this study of the 
food plants of our caterpillars are more striking 
when brought into contrast : the narrow choice 
of very many species which feed upon a single 
species or genus of plants and the very large 
number of families of plants which are brought 
under contribution to feed the entire body of our 
caterpillars. The fact that considerably more 
than half of the families of plants are sought by 
only a single family of butterflies, and indeed 



AS BOTANISTS 61 

usually by but a single species of butterfly, is only 
what one who has reared butterflies might expect, 
since he must often have found that under no 
consideration would a given caterpillar feed upon 
anything whatever but its own pet food plant. 
This is more striking because of the polyphagous 
nature of others, such as Jasoniades glaucus, 
which feeds upon plants belonging to no less than 
fifteen different families. 

In many, perhaps the majority of instances 
the plants upon which allied species or genera of 
caterpillars feed, themselves belong to allied fami- 
lies of the botanical systems ; and Fritz Miiller 
brings forward some curious instances in which 
a knowledge of the habits of butterflies would 
have led, had they been followed, to an earlier 
recognition of the affinities of certain plants. 
Thus he says (Nature, xxx. 240) : — 

" The caterpillars of Mechanitis, Dircenna, Ceratinia, 
and Ithomia feed on different species of Solanaceae 
(Solanum, Cyphomandra, Basso via, Oestrum), those of 
the aUied genus Thyridia on Brunfelsia. Now tliis 
latter genus of plants had been placed unanimously 
among the Scrophularineae, till quite recently it was 
transferred by Bentham and Hooker to the Solanaceae. 
Thus it appears that butterflies had recognized the 
true affinity of Brunfelsia long before botanists did so. 



52 BUTTERFLIES 

" There is yet another and more curious instance of 
our butterflies confirming the arrangement of plants in 
Bentham and Hooker's ' Genera Plantarum.' Ageronia 
and Didonis were formerly widely separated by lepi- 
dopterists, being even considered as constituting dis- 
tinct families, but now they are to be found beside one 
another among the Nymphalinae, and the structure of 
their caterpillars leaves no doubt about their close affin- 
ity. The caterpillars of Ageronia feed on Dalecham- 
pia, those of Didonis on Tragia. Now these two 
Euphorbiaceous genera were widely separated by 
Endlicher, who placed the former among the Euphor- 
bieae, the latter among the Acalypheae ; Bentham and 
Hooker, on the contrary, place them close together in 
the same sub-tribe of Plukenetieae, and thus their close 
affinity which had been duly appreciated by butterflies 
has finally been recognized by botanists also." 

The narrow choice of certain species is perhaps 
indicated in our own fauna by what we know of 
the food plant of the Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes 
tharos). So far as we know it feeds only upon 
a single species of Aster ; " and if your butterfly 
selects only that," said the late Dr. Gray when 
I told him of this, " it is a better botanist than 
most of us." Only one other plant has been 
alleged as its food and that probably by mistake. 
This special Aster the female selected out of many 



AS BOTANISTS 53 

furnislied it by Mr. Mead whereon to lay her 
eggs, and no one has yet reared it upon anything 
but Aster novae-angliae. Considering the diffi- 
culty that botanists have with the species of this 
group, such restriction of choice, if really true, 
certainly indicates some keen perception on the 
part of the butterfly. 

Now with exceedingly rare exceptions the eggs 
of butterflies are laid upon the very plant upon 
which the caterpillar will feed. In certain in- 
stances where the plants are abundant, as in the 
case of grasses, the butterfly may lay upon an 
object in the near vicinity, and this has also 
happened in a few instances in the case of butter- 
flies which are rather particular in their choice. 
Thus I once saw a European Satyrid lay an egg 
on a dead blade of grass lying loose upon the 
ground, have seen one of our species of Brenthis 
lay eggs upon grass in the vicinity of violets, and 
found the egg of a Pamphilid upon a thistle grow- 
ing among grasses. These exceptions seem only 
to prove the general rule that the eggs of butter- 
flies are laid directly upon the food plant of the 
young. 

This is an act of instinct, one wiU say. But is 
this any real explanation ? We wish to know how 



54 BUTTERFLIES 

the instinct acts. A parent butterjfly that in its 
early life has been nourished upon willow has no 
means in the winged condition of tasting the wil- 
low to recognize it, its organs for obtaining food 
being suited only for hquid nourishment. 

Nor can it be by the color of the object. It 
is true that butterflies are attracted by flowers 
through their means of vision. Interesting stories 
are told of their being deceived by painted or arti- 
ficial flowers. But in these cases there is no rea- 
son to suppose that it is anything but the tint in 
mass that attracts them to the spot. Pray how 
does the green of one plant differ from that of aU 
others ? Anatomy and experiment both seem to 
teach that butterflies have no power of vision for 
any such discrimination as is required of them in 
selecting special food plants for their yomig ; which 
yet they discover in an unerring manner. 

There remains apparently nothing but smell. 
That their sense of smell is exceptionally acute is 
plain from facts coming from a quite different 
source, which are given in another place, under 
Aromatic Butterflies. The production of odor 
impHes the recognition of odor, and inasmuch as 
the organs through which the odor is known in 
many cases to be emitted exist in a very much 



AS BOTANISTS 55 

larger number of butterflies tban have been recog- 
nized by our senses as odorous, it would seem a 
warrantable conclusion that, althougb we cannot 
perceive tbeir odor, tbey nevertbeless produce 
odors recognizable by their mates. Now we know 
in a similar way that many plants are odorous 
quite apart from their flowers ; and if one, with 
this idea in mind, will but watch the movements of 
a mother butterfly seeking a spot whereon to lay 
her eggs, he will not fail to recognize that many of 
these actions seem particularly in keeping with the 
notion that she is at work scenting the various 
plants that bear a general resemblance in their 
aspect to the one which she seeks ; many, indeed, 
which have no such general appearance, settling or 
half settling in a dozen different places in the near 
vicinity of the plant, reaching it by nearer and 
nearer approaches, and finally settling with satis- 
faction at the desired spot. To such an observer 
it will seem tolerably clear that it is to the sense 
of smell that butterflies owe their recognition of 
botanical species. 



V. 

THE NAMES OF BUTTEEFLIES 

When in the preparation of my " Butterflies of 
tlie Eastern United States and Canada " I found 
myself compelled by my study of tlie fauna to 
make use of a scientific terminology very different 
from that then in ordinary use, it seemed as if it 
might be desirable that at least our commoner 
species should have Enghsh names, which might 
in time become settled and then endure through 
all possible variations of scientific terminology. I 
noticed that in all the popular British works upon 
butterflies, an English name was almost invariably 
given, and that the names adopted by different 
authors did not always agree. It appeared, there- 
fore, to be probable that many of them were man- 
ufactured for the occasion. Some were extremely 
pretty, others appeared forced. I had noticed, 
further, that for the similar convenience of agricul- 
turists an Enghsh name, often bungling and diffi- 
cult to remember, a translation perhaps of an awk- 



NAMES OF BUTTERFLIES 57 

ward scientific name, was given to insects treated 
of in economical reports ; and, further, that Gosse, 
an Englishman who came to this country in his 
youth and wrote very interestingly of our animals, 
almost invariably applied a name, apparently of 
his own coining, to the butterflies with which he 
here came in contact. I therefore made an at- 
tempt to introduce such names into our nomen- 
clature, where they had not already been given, en- 
deavoring to adopt from the English such generic 
terms as fritiUary, hair-streak, etc., for similar but- 
terflies of our own country, and to coin appropri- 
ate names where required. I published a list of 
this sort in the first volume of " Psyche," which 
strangely enough met with most violent opposi- 
tion, an opposition which appeared to me to be 
entirely unreasonable and certainly out of all pro- 
portion to the adjudged crime. 

Accordingly in my " Butterflies of the Eastern 
United States " I again attempted to collate all the 
names that I could find that had been given to our 
different butterflies, and to select from among them 
that one which seemed most worthy of perma- 
nence, as my contribution toward a popular termi- 
nology. Of course in this case precedence is of no 
consequence, and local names applicable to another 



58 THE NAMES 

continent can scarcely be used. But I have not 
hesitated to devise names for such as have not 
already received them, in the hope that they may 
sometime be favorably received. Exception was 
made to my first list on the ground that such 
names should have a real popular value and ori- 
gin; and this objection is unquestionably valid. 
But that attempt and the later one are only efforts 
at the introduction of names which may hereafter 
become as strictly popular, in a technical sense, as 
those which have been given to certain common 
butterflies in other parts of the world. They must 
once have been named by some one, and the 
practice is common among ornithologists ; only 
recently Mr. Sclater was complimented in the 
columns of "Nature" for his success and good 
judgment in this matter. I have further support 
in the fact that one finds among the early authors 
on the continent of Europe many attempts of this 
same kind, where common names have been ap- 
plied which may or may not have come down to us 
at the present time. Thus taking up the other day 
the old work of Sepp on Dutch butterflies, I found 
such names as " konings-mantel " (a curious vari- 
ation from the German trauermantel) given to 
antiopa, "distelvink" to cardui, " nommer-vlin- 



OF BUTTERFLIES 59 

der " to atalanta, and to others not found in this 
country such odd names as " de eike page " and 
" hooi-beestje." I should be sorry if old Sepp had 
not taken this liberty. This is my warrant and 
my only warrant for attempting to introduce such 
names. It seems to me that they will possibly 
serve a useful purpose, and certainly they can do 
no one any harm. They can be simply ignored. 
They will only survive if fitted to do so. 

One examining for the first time the scientific 
terminology of butterflies would be interested at 
seeing how largely the names, and especially the 
early ones, had been bestowed by authors who had 
received a classical education, and how extensively 
the Greek mythology figured in the nomenclature 
of these creatures. The many forms of the name 
of Venus in particular would strike one. Much of 
this is certainly due to the example set by the first 
great nomenclator of zoology, Linne, who applied 
also the names of Greek heroes in the Trojan war 
to a very large number of swallow-tail butterflies, 
and his example has been followed by lepidopterol- 
ogists down to the present day. A few notable 
exceptions will be found in later times when names 
of old Scandinavian mythical heroes were intro- 
duced into the nomenclature of European butter- 



60 THE NAMES 

flies ; and in our own country Harris, when he 
found so large a number of skippers unnamed, 
bethought himself of a new device, which was the 
use of the names of Indian chiefs of greater or less 
historic fame which have come down to us, and his 
example, first followed by Edwards and myself, 
has been taken up by nearly all subsequent writ- 
ers, so that the bulk of the specific names of our 
Pamphilini are now drawn from those of the dusky 
red aborigines of our country. 

As to the very word " butterfly " itself, there 
has been much written, but, strangely, as it seems 
to me, the persons best quahfied by their philologi- 
cal learning are least assured concerning the deri- 
vation of the name. Skeat and Murray are not 
known as entomologists. " It has amused many to 
devise g-uesses to explain the name," says Skeat. 
Mr. Frederick Clarkson, in the " Canadian Ento- 
mologist " (xvii. 44), thinks there is good reason 
to beheve that the root-meaning of the word " dates 
back to early Egyptian history, and as a hierogly- 
phic it is synonymous as representing the qualities 
of completeness and perfection wliich characterize 
the soul." All of which I m my ignorance judge 
to be humbug. One distrusts much of the reason- 
ing drawn from hieroglyphs, for it would seem in 



OF BUTTERFLIES 61 

general tliat almost any meaning can be drawn from 
them by dilettanteism if only sufficient ingenuity 
is put in. An English writer, Sara Coleridge, has 
strenuously upheld the idea that a butterfly was 
simply a better sort of fly, laughing to scorn the 
common notion, which seems to me, as I think it 
must to all entomologists, to be unquestionably the 
correct one, that the word is simply an expressive 
name given to the commonest form of butterfly 
that is found in Europe, where the name arose, 
namely, the butterflies of the genus Eurymus, 
which are ordinarily of much the same kind of yel- 
low that one finds on the buttercup, whence the 
name of both. One feels the greater confidence 
in this because the term is applied in so many dif- 
ferent languages in much the same way. In Anglo- 
Saxon, it is buttor-fleoge, which is simply butterfly ; 
while some of the variations of this term in other 
languages are the Dutch botervlieg, earlier boter- 
vlieghe, the German butterfliege, and the earlier 
German form, buttervogel.^ Other variations of 
the same name appear in the poetical quotations 

^ Compare our own ladyJirc? for Coccinella, as in the com- 
mon distich, which ran differently in my childhood from 
what is set down in the books. 1 was taught to say : — 

" Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home, 
Your house is on fire and your children will roam." 



62 NAMES OF BUTTERFLIES 

from different languages which I made use of in 
my '' Butterflies of the Eastern United States." 
Murray in his New English dictionary gives vari- 
ous extracts showing the early use of this name, 
the earliest in the Anglo-Saxon being as far back 
as 1000 by Aelfric. Chaucer gives it in another 
form : "Swich talkyng is nat worth a boterflye." 



VI. 



COLOR-RELATIONS OF CHRYSALIDS TO THEIR 
SURROUNDINGS 

It has long been known that there is in many 
instances considerable variation in the color of the 
chrysalids of certain butterflies, and that in not a 
few instances we find a dimorphism more or less 
accentuated. The most frequent difference that 
has been noticed has been the prevalence on the 
one hand of green tints, on the other of dark gray 
or brown. Now when we recall that the common- 
est places chosen by caterpillars of butterflies for 
pupation are either amongst the foliage of the 
plant on which they have fed, or on the other hand 
pendent from, or attached to, the twigs or trunks 
of trees with their gray bark, or to stones whose 
general color is dark gray or brown, we notice that 
we have here general tints of much the same con- 
trast. When we further observe that the green 
color prevails in the chrysalids of those species 
which commonly transform upon the leaves of their 



64 COLOR-RELATIONS OF CHRYSALIDS 

food plant, and brown or gray in those whicli seem 
to prefer the background of bark or rock or dead 
wood, we are struck at once with the protection 
which such resemblance must afford to chrysalids 
in general. And this conclusion would be very 
much strengthened were we to review the various 
minuter peculiarities of coloring and of sculpture 
which one may easily find. One of the most 
curious of these is noted by Fritz Miiller, who says 
that the appendages on the chrysalids of Eueides, 
which hang horizontally on the under side of leaves, 
resemble the fungi which attack insects and which 
are found in precisely similar places. Another 
instance would be found in the sharp angularities 
of many chrysalids among the Njrmphalidae, com- 
bined with their frequent brilliancy by reflected 
colors, golden or nacreous, which, in combination, 
would be strikingly similar to the metallic gleam 
of angular minerals in the rocks which form their 
natural background. 

This last circumstance, to which attention has 
been specially called by a very painstaking experi- 
mental entomologist of England, Professor E. B. 
Poulton, led him to a careful inquiry into the 
cause and extent of the special color-relations exist- 
ing between the chrysalids of butterflies and their 



TO THEIR SURROUNDINGS Qb 

surrounding surfaces. He has been able to obtain 
almost at will chrysalids of different colors, accord- 
ing to the tints witb whicli lie has surrounded 
them, and so has opened a new field of experimental 
inquiry which may yield important, as it already 
has interesting results. By carefully selecting the 
time at which his experiments were made he has 
been able to determine that in all the species 
experimented upon it was only necessary to con- 
fine attention to that period in the later larval life 
of the insect, when it has ceased feeding and 
remains motionless, together with the early portion 
of the next period, after spinning the silken pads 
and shrouds for the pupal attachments until it has 
thrown off the larval skin. It had already been 
pointed out by Meldola that it was impossible to 
suppose the moist skin of the freshly formed pupa 
photographically sensitive to the color of the sur- 
rounding surfaces, and this has been made per- 
fectly evident from the experiments of Poulton, 
which show that the color is determined before the 
assumption of the pupal state, since experiments 
made later than the time mentioned produced 
absolutely no results. Neither was Poulton suc- 
cessful, as he seems to have expected to be, in 
preventing the influence of surrounding objects 



66 COLOR-RELATIONS OF CHRYSALIDS 

from reaching the nervous centres through the 
ocalli of the caterpillar. All his successful experi- 
ments came when applied to that period of the 
transformation to which we have referred. 

Most of the experiments were made upon three 
species, the Small Tortoise-shell (Agiais urticae), 
the Large Cabbage White (Mancipium brassicae), 
and the Small Cabbage White (Pieris rapae). 
The experiments consisted in preparing for the 
creatures during their changes artificial surround- 
ings of different colors : green, orange, black, white, 
and gilt. Over seven hundred chrysalids in all 
were experimented upon, and it was found that 
with Agiais urticae green and orange surroundings 
caused no effect on the pupal colors, black produced 
as a rule dark chrysalids, while white produced 
light colored ones, many of the last being bril- 
liantly golden ; this suggested the use of gilt sur- 
roundings, which were far more efficient than 
white in producing chrysalids of a distinctly golden 
color, more so even than often occurs in a state 
of nature. The influence of black was curiously 
shown by the fact that when the caterpillars changed 
to chrysalids upon light surfaces, those which under- 
went their transformations in close proximity to one 
another were darker than those which were more 



TO THEIR SURROUNDINGS 67 

isolated, the color of each being affected by that 
part of the surroundings which were made up of 
the dark bodies of its neighbors. In endeavor- 
ing to discover whether the sensitiveness of the 
chrysalids to their surroundings was due to the 
general surface of the skin as a whole or only to 
that of one portion, experiments were made by 
confining the chrysalids in tubes, part of which 
were colored black and part gilt, and the two parts 
separated by a diaphragm only permitting the 
pendent body to pass through ; by reversing the 
conditions and making experiments with a large 
number of chrysalids, it became plainly evident 
that the color influence acted on some element of 
the larval skin, and that the larger the area of the 
skin exposed to any one color the more the chrysa- 
lids followed its influence. The nature of the 
effects produced is thus described by Poulton : — 

" The coloring matter of the dark pupae is contained 
in a thin superficial layer of the cuticle ; below this is a 
thicker layer divided into exceedingly delicate lamellae, 
between which fluids are present, and the latter form 
the thin plates which, by causing interference of light, 
produce the brilliant metallic appearance. The thinner 
upper layer, being dark, acts as a screen in the dark 
pupae. Precisely the same metallic appearances are 



68 COLOR-RELATIONS OF CHRYSALIDS 

caused by the films of air between the thin plates of 
glass which are formed on the surface of bottles long 
exposed to earth and moisture. Both have the same 
spectroscopic characters and the same transmitted colors 
(complementary to those seen by reflection). The 
brilliancy of the cuticle can be preserved in spirit for 
any length of time ; it disappears on drying, but can be 
renewed on wetting (this had been previously known), 
and the colors are seen to change during the process 
of drying and when the cuticle is pressed, for the films 
are thus made thinner. The same lamellated layer exists 
in non-metallic pupae of other species, and is used as 
a reflector for transparent coloring-matter contained 
in its outer lamellae. Thus the structure which ren- 
dered possible the brilliant effects due to interference 
probably existed long before these special effects were 
obtained, and was used for a different purpose." 

It has long been known that many of the chrys- 
alids of the Vanessini which yield parasitic Ichneu- 
monidae in place of their proper inhabitants are 
frequently gilded; which is to be explained, in 
Poulton's view, by the abnormal state of the cater- 
pillar, which prevents the formation of pigment in 
the chrysalis. In this instance the gilded appear- 
ance is preservative not of the creature itself, but 
of one of its foes, and does not appear a very wise 
provision of Nature. 



TO THEIR SURROUNDINGS 69 

These experiments were made principally with 
the Small Tortoise-shell (Aglais urticae) ; others 
upon the different species of Pierinae were quite 
similar, the influence of black surroundings being 
to produce dark chrysalids, and the greater the il- 
lumination the darker the chrysalids, this last re- 
sult being the reverse of that obtained with the 
Vanessini ; white produced light colored chrysalids, 
and the greater the illumination the lighter the 
chrysalids ; dark red produced dark, deep orange 
very light green chrysalids ; pale yellow and yel- 
lowish green surroundings produced rather darker 
chrysalids than the orange ; and bluish green 
much darker, while dark blue produced still darker 
chrysalids. 

There is thus seen to be a certain difference be- 
tween different sorts of chrysalids as to the effect 
of the color of their surroundings, some being de- 
cidedly affected by colors which have no influence 
upon others. Probably a careful study of the nat- 
ural conditions under which pupation takes place 
may lead to better comprehension of a fact at pres- 
ent not clearly explainable ; and may bring other 
instances into harmony, as where, according to 
Fritz Miiller, a Brazilian Swallow-tail, evander, is 
said to have both brown and green chrysalids with 
no intermediate forms, and both produced under 



70 COLOR-RELATIONS OF CHRYSALIDS 

identical circumstances. Our own Zebra Swallow- 
tail (Iphiclides ajax), in which a similar dimor- 
phism seems to be equally distinct, would serve as 
a good subject for experiment. 

In concluding his account of his experiments on 
the Pierinae, Mr. Poulton observes : — 

" It must be remarked that the effect of the colored 
surroundings upon the dark pigment is, perhaps, the 
least important part of the changes produced, for there 
are other consequences which seem to be much deeper 
in significance and far more difficult to understand. 
The black pigment patches and minute black dots are 
cuticular and superficial, while the ground colors are 
subcuticular and deep-seated ; and in the most brightly 
colored pupae they are mixed colors due to the existence 
of different pigmentary (and probably chlorophylloid) 
bodies present in the different elements and at different 
depths of the subcuticular tissues of the same pupa. In 
other pupae no trace of such colors can be seen. Hence 
we see in these most complex and varied effects of the 
stimulus provided by the reflected hght, which deepen 
into their permanent pupal condition very many hours 
after the stimulus has ceased to act, the strongest evi- 
dence for the existence of a chain of physiological pro- 
cesses almost unparalleled in intricacy and difficulty, 
while a theory of comparatively simple and direct photo- 
chemical changes induced by the stimulus itself without 
the intervention of such a physiological circle seems 
entirely inadequate as an explanation of the facts." 



VIL 

THE WHITE MOUNTAINS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, AS 
A HOME FOR BUTTERFLIES 

There is no spot in New England where an 
aurelian can obtain such successful results in a 
brief time as in the high valleys of the White 
Mountain region. Not only are many butterflies 
which elsewhere are rare, or abundant only in very 
restricted localities, to be obtained here, but they 
occur in the greatest profusion, more than making 
amends for the less favorable weather which is apt 
to interfere with collecting in mountainous locali- 
ties. From the latter part of May until late in 
September one is always rewarded for a few days' 
collecting. 

Perhaps it is because my visits have mainly been 
to that spot that I have found " The Glen " the 
most favorable region. Here, in a valley running 
north and south, at an elevation of about 2000 
feet, following in one direction the valley of the 
Peabody, and in the other that of the Ellis, in a 



72 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 

densely wooded region witli high mountains on 
either side sloping down to the narrow valley, with 
considerable clearings in the river bottom, where 
cultivated patches, pastures, swampy tracts, hill- 
sides overgTown with shrubbery, and damp and 
shaded forest roads are to be met with, nearly all 
the conditions for abundant insect-life are to be 
found at their best. More than this, a wagon 
road, eight miles in length, winding half way 
through the primeval forest, where it forms a 
broad lane which the butterflies covet, half way 
over the rough ledges and sedgy plateaus of the 
treeless upper region of our highest mountain, 
where flowers are blooming all through the season 
to captivate the tired traveler, — this road to the 
highest summit affords a ready means of learning 
at what altitude the valley species ascend, and 
what kinds inhabit the inhospitable higher levels of 
the mountains. 

Let us speak first of those which belong in the 
valleys, where the vegetation is so profuse and di- 
versified ; and restrict our remarks principally to 
those which are commonest here, and met with 
more rarely elsewhere, — those which have, so far 
as New England is concerned, their maximum 
development in this district. 



AS A HOME FOR BUTTERFLIES 73 

It is the region ^9«?' excellence of that striking 
butterfly, the Banded Purple (Basilarchia arthe- 
mis). When the stage, with its city freight, wind- 
ing its way over the hilly roads with the first rush 
of travel, leaves most of the farms behind it and 
enters the heart of the forest, flock after flock of 
these showy butterflies arise from the damp spots 
in the road where, sometimes by hundreds, they 
are assembled to suck the moisture from the earth, 
and then flutter about the stage in fascinating 
bewilderment, settling again to the feast in a hes- 
itating way as soon as the disturbance is past. 
Indeed, they sometimes become a very nuisance, 
dozens of them when seeking a shelter entering 
the open doors and windows of the farm-houses, 
and fluttering about the windows in a vain and 
distracting attempt to escape when there is any 
movement within. 

In the early season, when the buds are just be- 
ginning to burst, the young caterpillar may be 
found emerging from its hibernaculum deftly fas- 
tened near the tips of black-birch sprigs everjnvhere 
growing by the roadside ; in July, the bristling 
globular egg attached to the extreme tip of the 
pointed leaf of the same, and later the leaves eaten 
in peculiar fashion, reveal where to look for the 



74 



THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 



grotesque party-colored caterpillar, scarcely to be 
distinguished from tliat of its congener, tlie Vice- 
roy (B. archippus). Tlie latter is also common 
(thougli less common than in southern New Eng- 
land), prefers the willow and the poplar, and may 
be found feeding even up to the extreme limit of 
forest vegetation on the mountain side. 

This, too, is the New England metropolis for 
that high-spirited butterfly, the Green Comma 
(Polygonia f annus). Unhke arthemis, it is 
never found in flocks, but only by threes and fours 
at most, keeping up a constant warfare with one 
another ; but it is still so common along the roads, 
and particularly in the more open spots, or where 
the roads enter bits of forest or cross a mountain 
brook, that, notwithstanding its wary activity, one 
may even capture in favorable times a hundred in 
a day ; once I must have seen five hundred in a 
single railway ride of six miles in the forest on the 
western side of Mt. Washington between Fabyan's 
and the base of the mountain. Its caterpillar — 
also party-colored, but bristKng with spines — may 
be found both on the black birches and the wil- 
lows. Where both these plants are found in such 
abundance, search would seem to be vain ; but if it 
is confined to such sprays of the smaller plants as 



i 



AS A HOME FOR BUTTERFLIES 75 

project forward toward tlie road, — such spots in- 
deed as tlie butterflies select to alight upon, — the 
patient search will be rewarded. Another Polygo- 
nia, far rarer, the Hoary Comma (P. gracilis), I 
had until 1887 taken only here and on the oppo- 
site side of Mt. Washington, perhaps a couple of 
dozen in all in as many years ; and it is almost its 
only known locality in New England, though it 
doubtless occurs in many other elevated regions 
favorable for P. f annus. In 1887 it was tolera- 
bly common, and was found to occupy a distinctly 
lower zone, below 2500 feet. The Gray Comma 
(P. progne) is also common, belongs properly to 
the same zone, and I have taken its larva here 
on the wild gooseberry. The Compton Tortoise 
(Eugonia j. -album) is another butterfly common 
in certain seasons at least, and I should consider 
this its favorite New England ground, were it not 
that one night it flew by hundreds into Sankaty 
lighthouse on Nantucket, where in several sum- 
mers' residence on the island I never saw it at any 
other time. The Mourning Cloak (Euvanessa 
antiopa) is also common enough at the White 
Mountains, but not much more so than elsewhere. 
One may generally see a dozen on a good day 
in early June, — seedy-looking individuals which 



76 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 

have sur^dved tlie winter. The American Tor- 
toise-shell (Agiais milberti) is also common in the 
lower country, feeding in swarms upon the net- 
tles; and this concludes the series of Nymphalini 
which need be mentioned. 

The Mountain Silver-spot (Argynnis atlantis) 
occurs here in the utmost profusion, as nowhere 
else in New England. One may easily take hun- 
dreds in a single day, the sandalwood-scented males 
largely predominating. The Silver-bordered Fri- 
tillary (Brenthis myrina) and the Meadow Fritil- 
lary (B. bellona) are abundant in the restricted 
meadow-lands, and in about equal numbers, though 
B. myrina is far more common in central New Eng- 
land. But the region is one of the best for most 
of our Mehtaeini. The Tawny Crescent (Phyci- 
odes batesii) occurs here early in June, and tliis is 
its only known New England locality. The Pearl 
Crescent (P. tharos) swarms (as it also does else- 
where), and here is the best place to search for 
those very local species, Harris's butterfly (Cincli- 
dia harrisii) and the Baltimore (Euphydryas phae- 
ton). They can best be obtained in the larval 
state, for they may always be taken in large num- 
bers very early in the spring in such conveniently 
accessible spots as the immediate borders of the 



AS A HOME FOR BUTTERFLIES 77 

Glen road, harrisii feeding in large companies on 
Diplopappns and phaeton scarcely more dispersed 
on Lonicera. 

I have never paid special attention to the The- 
clini in this region, nor had them force themselves 
on my notice ; so that I am inclined to think none 
of them particularly abundant, or more so than 
elsewhere. Nor are any of the Lycaenini excep- 
tionally common, excepting Cyaniris, which is cer- 
tainly far commoner, especially the Early Spring 
Azure (C. pseudargiolus lucia), than an3rwhere else 
in New England, abundant as it often is. The 
roads seem at times blue with them, and they 
swarm at all moist spots, occurring also to the very 
edge of the forest line, and enchanting the early 
pedestrian at every step. They are also one of the 
earliest risers, and are the first to be seen when 
the clouds break after a rain. Of the Chrysoph- 
anini, the American Copper (Heodes hypophlaeas) 
is of course abundant, as everywhere, and the 
Wanderer (Feniseca tarquinius) may always be 
found in its time at the proper places ; there is one 
isolated copse, with alder (everywhere growing in 
profusion), just north of the Glen House, where 
I never fail to see it fluttering about when in 
season. 



78 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 

Among tlie Pierinae, the Clouded Sulpliur (Eury- 
mus philodice) and the Cabbage butterfly (Pieris 
rapae) are of course abundant enough. I shall 
be surprised if the Pink Edge (E. interior) does not 
some day turn up here, having escaped the net only 
because no one takes so common an insect as its 
congener, which it resembles too much on the wing 
to be readily distinguished from it ; and I have 
taken it above timber. The only interesting form 
of this group found here is the Gray-veined White 
(Pieris oleracea). Though nowhere nearly so com- 
mon as thirty years ago, when I first collected at 
the mountains, when one might see fifty at a time 
in an open field, it is not yet quite exterminated by 
the invading Cabbage butterfly (P. rapae), and in 
the very first of the season, when a dozen or so may 
be taken in a day, is as common as that species ; 
but with the advanced season it appears quite lost 
among the swarms of the latter. Probably it will 
always hold out in this, its New England strong- 
hold. 

None of the swallow-tails are preeminently 
abundant, with the single exception of the Tiger 
Swallow-tail (Jasoniades glaucus). But this is 
indeed an exception. Early in June of any year 
one may take a dozen or twenty with a single sweep 



AS A HOME FOR BUTTERFLIES 79 

of the net at moist places by the roadside, or if 
cautious enougli pick up with the fingers one speci- 
men after another till he wearies of the task. It 
never fails to be abundant, and its great size and 
social habits make it appear the commonest butter- 
fly of the region. The males appear to vastly out- 
number the females. 

The skippers may be dismissed with a few words, 
as most of them may be found equally abundant 
elsewhere ; but this is certainly the best place I 
know for obtaining the Dreamy Dusky-wing (Tha- 
naos icelus), and is probably the best for securing 
those rarer forms, the Arctic Skipper (Pamphila 
mandan) and Pepper and Salt (Amblyscirtes 
samoset), though they are never very abundant, 
while the Roadside Skipper (A. vialis) is always to 
be met with early in June. 

These are the more interesting of the valley 
butterflies of the White Mountains, found in much 
greater abundance than elsewhere ; but they form 
a small part of those which abound here, and the 
real interest centres in noting to what height any 
of them may be found. For this the open heads 
of the great ravines which seem to gnaw at the very 
vitals of the great mountain masses, with the wagon 
road up Mt. Washington on one side and the 



80 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 

broad railway-cutting at tlie other, forming as they 
do highways for butterfly as well as man, are the 
most interesting and instructive spots. Prominent 
among those which may be found, and which prob- 
ably or certainly pass their lives in any part of 
the forest region, however elevated, where there 
are open spaces, are the Viceroy (Basilarchia ar- 
chippus), already mentioned in this way, the Poly- 
gonias, the Compton Tortoise (Eugonia j. -album), 
and the Spring Azure (Cyaniris pseudargiolus). 
Not infrequently, these fly even far above these 
natural limits, and have been taken or seen upon 
the highest points. Indeed, many insects are the 
veriest Appalachians, seeming to take a dehght in 
exploring the summits. This is truer of some 
other insects than of butterflies, and j^erhaps they 
are borne upward by the wind-currents ; for in 
the first week of June I have found the great 
snow-patches at the very summit of Mt. Washing- 
ton fairly peppered wi\h numerous small insects, 
especially Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera, and 
Homoptera, prominent among which were thou- 
sands upon thousands of delicate-wiuged plant-lice. 
Besides these among the larger iusects an Acan- 
thosoma, perhaps A. nebulosa, swarmed on the hotel 
piazza, and every pool of water by the roadside was 






WHITE MOUNTAIN BUTTERFLIES 



AS A HOME FOR BUTTERFLIES 81 

tlie grave of countless Bibio femoratus. Of the 
butterflies alone which I have found upon the very 
highest summits are (besides two species immedi- 
ately to be mentioned, characteristic of the mountain 
top) the following : Basilarchia archippus, B. arthe- 
mis, Polygonia interrogationis, P. faunus, P. gra- 
cilis, Eugonia j. -album, Euvanessa antiopa, Aglais 
milberti, Argynnis atlantis, Brenthis myrina, B. bel- 
lona, Phyciodes tharos, Incisaha niphon, Cyaniris 
pseudargiolus, Pieris rapae, Jasoniades glaucus, 
Thanaos icelus, and Limochores taumas, — in all, 
twenty species. 

It will require still a good deal of field-work to 
determine how far up the mountain side these 
forms habitually breed; for, as given, the list is 
merely that of stragglers of an inquisitive turn of 
mind. 

It is far more interesting, perhaps the most in- 
teresting point in the geographical distribution of 
New England butterflies, to find that there are two 
butterflies living exclusively on these inclement 
mountain heights. One of them, the White Moun- 
tain butterfly (Oeneis semidea), is known else- 
where only on the summits of the highest peaks of 
the Kocky Mountains in Colorado, where it does 
not appear, apparently, below an elevation of about 



82 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 

12,000 feet, above whieli, and up to 14,000 feet, 
it has been taken on Mt. Lincobi, Sierra Blanca, 
the Argentine Pass, Pike's Peak, and Twin Lakes. 
It is, however, regarded by some as only a variety 
of a species found farther north. In any case it is 
either a distinct species or weU on the road to it ; 
and so far as its interest in this connection goes, it 
matters little in which light it be viewed. The 
other species, the Dappled Pritillary (Brenthis 
montinus), will, in my judgment, certainly be found 
beyond the great range of the White Mountains, 
whence only it is so far known. I should look for 
it confidently above the forest line in the Adiron- 
dacks, and on Ktaadn, as well as other elevated 
and barren heights. It has been reported as seen 
on Black Mountain near Thornton, N. H., which 
is wooded to the summit ; but an actual capture 
would be necessary to establish such a fact. It, 
too, is regarded by some as merely a variety of an- 
other species found farther north, and this northern 
species occurs as near as southern Labrador and 
Anticosti, and ranges across the country to Great 
Slave Lake. It is, however, separable from it, and 
whether to be looked on as a distinct species or 
merely as a variety is a pure matter of indi^ddual 
idiosyncrasy. The question is similar to the pre- 



AS A HOME FOR BUTTERFLIES 83 

ceding, but at present receives no side-light from 
the west. 

One will hardly fail to notice that while the 
forest line at the White Mountains is tolerably 
well marked (at a height of about 4000 or 4500 
feet), it is always succeeded above by a consider- 
able area, where the dwarfed spruce or " scrub, " 
struggling upward with ever diminishing height, 
conceals the gray rocks in a covering of uniform 
green, excepting on the unstable surfaces of the 
steeper slopes, — an area which is strongly contrasted 
with the barren gray broken rocks above, which lie 
piled in vast heaps exposed to full view, except 
where a patch of sedge furnishes a small and bar- 
ren pasture upon some more favored plateau. The 
sides of these mountains, where they rise to their 
highest culmination, are thus divisible into a forest 
and an alpine region, and the latter into a lower, or 
scrub, and an upper, or rocky, district. These two 
subdivisions of the alpine region correspond fairly 
well with the areas occupied by the two mountain 
butterflies just mentioned. There is no doubt that 
occasional individuals of the White Mountain but- 
terfly (Oeneis semidea) will be found far within 
the limits of the lower alpine region ; for the fierce 
blasts of wind which sweep around these lofty ele- 



84 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 

vations must sometimes hurl tliese feeble flutterers 
far down toward the wooded valleys, as I have 
myseK seen ; and there is no doubt that they can 
find their food plant all through the lower alpine 
region ; nevertheless, the contrast between the occa- 
sional and unwilling visitor below and the swarms 
which in their season crowd the upper plateaus is 
very marked and significant. The localities where 
I have found them most abundant are the succes- 
sive sedgy plateaus which flank the upper part of 
the carriage road on Mt. Washington, and espe- 
cially the broad area between the sixth and seventh 
mile-posts, where the road takes a side turn, and 
which I call Semidea Plateau. So, too, one may 
find an aspiring Brenthis above the limits of the 
lower alpine region ; but it is very rarely seen there, 
and the violets on which the caterpillar probably 
feeds will scarcely ever be found in any abundance 
within the upper alpine area. It seems fairly 
deducible from these facts that even the limited area 
of the barren heights above the White Mountain 
forests is divisible into two districts, each of which 
claims a butterfly as its own ; so that in ascending 
Mt. Washington, w^e pass, as it were, from New 
Hampshire to northern Labrador ; for on leaving 
the New Hampshire forests and forest fauna behind 



AS A HOME FOR BUTTERFLIES 85 

us, we come first upon insects (there are others be- 
sides B. montinus) recalling those of the northern 
shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the coast of 
Labrador opposite Newfoundland ; and when we 
have attained the summit a butterfly greets us which 
represents the fauna of Atlantic Labrador and 
Greenland. 

Interesting as this is, how very meagre such 
a showing appears by the side of our knowledge 
of the butterfly faunas of the Swiss and Colorado 
alps, where the mountains rise to so much greater 
heights, and the mountainous area is so vastly 
more extended ! In the Swiss mountains, where 
the alpine area is limited above as well as below, 
and the melting of the eternal snows keeps the 
whole region above the trees one of the choicest 
pasturages for cattle that the earth affords, the 
whole aspect of the butterfly world is different. 
A host of species in infinite numbers crowd about 
the blossoms, the springs, the very edges of the 
glaciers. Forms wholly unknown in the valleys 
below, or allied to but easily distinguished from 
them, meet one at every step. A species of 
Oeneis, very many of Erebia, several Brenthis, 
a number of Melitaeini, a host of Lycaenini, with 
species of Eurymus, Parnassius, and several Hes- 



86 THE WHITE MOUNTAINS 

peridae, show how varied and striking the fauna 
is. Besides these a great many of the valley 
forms often accompany them, among which will 
be found our old friends antiopa, cardui and ata- 
lanta, so rarely seen with us above the forest. In 
the Cordilleras of Colorado, where the snow-fields 
are far less important, and glaciers are practically 
unknown, we have a condition of things between 
the mountains of Switzerland and New Hamp- 
shire. The number of distinct forms is consider- 
able, but by no means so large as in Switzerland. 
A couple of species of Oeneis are found here, with 
several Erebias, and a Brenthis or two ; some 
Melitaeini also occur, most of which are also 
found some distance below the timber-line, which 
is here vastly higher than at the White Moun- 
tains, being at about 10,000 feet. The Lycaenini 
are abundant, and one finds a characteristic Eury- 
mus, Parnassius (also found at lower levels), and 
one or two Hesperidae of the same group as 
occurs on the Swiss Alps. Indeed, the agreement 
of the typical alpine forms of Colorado and 
Switzerland is striking, and in strange contrast 
to the poverty of New Hampshire ; the more so, 
as a large number of the additional generic types 
are not those characteristic of high latitudes. 



AS A HOME FOR BUTTERFLIES 87 

What the higher levels of the White Mountains 
would be as a home for butterflies, if a thousand 
or two more feet were added to their elevation 
and snow crowned the higher summits, it might 
be hard to say, but it would certainly be still very 
different from the fauna of the Swiss or the Col- 
orado alps. Many of the generic forms which 
are common to them scarcely occur in eastern 
America; so that the difference between the three 
alpine faunas we have mentioned accentuates the 
distinction which exists between eastern America 
and Europe, and the agreement found between 
western America and Europe. 



Yin. 

BUTTEEFLY SOUNDS 

It has long been known tliat some South 
American butterflies during their flight give 
utterance to peculiar clicking sounds, but it is 
far less known that such noises are made by our 
own butterflies ; we shall hope to show that it is 
not improbably a common feature in the life of 
butterflies. The first account of the noises made 
by butterflies (belonging to the genus Ageronia) 
appears to be that given by Darwin in his cele- 
brated " Journal," who states that " several times 
when a pair, probably male and female, were 
chasing each other in an irregidar course, they 
passed within a few yards of me ; and I distinctly 
heard a clicking noise, similar to that produced 
by a toothed wheel passing under a spring catch. 
The noise was continued at short intervals, and 
could be distinguished at about twenty yards' 
distance." But the most interesting account we 
have seen of these sounds is that given by Mr. 



BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 89 

Bigg- Wither. This butterfly, wMcli he and his 
friends christened the " whip butterfly," is said 
by him to settle upon the boles of trees, head 
downward and wings outspread, closely embracing 
the bark. " In this position, which is more com- 
mon to moths than to butterflies, it remains unde- 
tected by the casual observer, as it resembles 
merely a patch of Kchen. If approached, how- 
ever, it wiU give warning of its disapprobation by 
sharply shutting and opening its wings once or 
twice (more generally twice) in quick succession, 
producing by this sudden contact the whip-like 
snap from which we gave it its name." One 
notices exactly this movement in many of our 
temperate Yanessini, when half alarmed. " Fre- 
quently, too, it makes the same sound when on 
the wing. The surugud [a bird with a sharp 
beak and abnormally big mouth] is very partial 
to this butterfly, and is at once attracted by the 
whip-like crack, forsaking its branch on which 
perhaps it has been perching for half an hour 
without having given the smallest sign of life, 
and darting after the ' whip-cracker ' with great 
eagerness." Mr. Walker states that when these 
butterflies are approached after alighting they 
start off at great speed, "making at the same 



90 BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 

time a loud and most singular snapping or crack- 
ling noise, wliicli I can best compare to tlie sound 
of a slight electric spark, at intervals of one to 
five seconds. This sound is particularly distinct 
when the male is chasing the female, and I have 
heard it at a distance of at least ten yards. I 
think it is produced by both sexes." Wallace 
observed the same thing at Para, and believed 
that it was produced in some way by the contact 
of two insects, as he only heard it when two 
insects were chasing or frolicking with each other, 
and it seems to be the general belief that the 
sound is common to both sexes, which Mr. Van 
Yolxem positively asserts. 

But, as stated above, these sounds are emitted 
also by butterflies of the temperate regions. 
Thus Mr. Swinton, who has written a good deal 
upon this subject, states that the Small Tortoise- 
shell (Aglais urticae), about to hibernate and 
in a drowsy condition, was induced by him to 
depress and shut the wings successively, and 
" each time she testily performed this action I 
heard distinctly, as the fore wings were brought 
forward, when only the extreme basal portion of 
the wings was in contact, a sound soft and refresh- 
ing, like evening footsteps on the pavement, or 



BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 91 

grating sand-paper." The same thing has been 
observed long since by the Rev. Mr. Green in 
the European Peacock butterfly (Hamadryas io), 
who accidentally disturbed a colony of hibernating 
butterflies and heard a faint hissing noise issue 
from the cavity in which they were concealed, 
while the wings were slowly depressed and ele- 
vated ; the noise resembled " that made by blow- 
ing slowly with moderate force through the closed 
teeth." The late Mr. Hewitson of England also 
observed the same thing in Hamadryas io, but 
compares the sound of the wings when rubbed 
together to the friction of sand-paper. Mr. A. H. 
Jones noted the same thing in a hibernating 
Mourning Cloak (Euvanessa antiopa), which pro- 
duced a grating sound, and I have myself not 
only heard this butterfly make the noise while 
fanning its wings as it rested upon a window sill, 
but have artificially produced the same sound by 
rubbing the wings of a dead specimen together. 

Other butterflies, but tropical species, are also 
stated to produce such sounds. Thus Distant 
gives the observation of a Captain Godfery as 
noticing that one of a pair of a species of Thau- 
mantis (a genus allied to the great blue Morphos 
of South America), while flying around its mate, 



92 BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 

" produced a most curious crackling or rustling 
noise," which " was evidently emitted at the crea- 
ture's will, and was distinctly audible within two 
or three yards of the insect." Fritz Miiller, who 
adds his testimony to the clicking sound emitted 
by Ageronia, states that quite another butterfly, 
a species of Eunica, equally produces the noise, 
and he also heard a sound, even louder than that 
made by Ageronia, " produced by two small 
brown butterflies which I did not succeed in 
catching." 

The sounds made by butterflies of the temper- 
ate zone and compared by nearly all observers to 
that of the abrasion of one rough surface upon 
another, more or less faint, would hardly seem at 
first sight to be entirely analogous to the clicking 
sounds made by their more noisy brethren of the 
tropics, but it is not impossible that they should 
be. Experiments made after death upon the 
Green Comma (Polygonia faunus) show that they 
must be capable of producing the same sounds as 
the Mourning Cloak (Euvanessa antiopa) ; and 
in this connection, an instance which occurred to 
me one summer on the top of Mt. Washington 
has a direct bearing ; for while walking on the 
carriage road, I started up a pair of the former, 



BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 93 

unobserved, just at my feet. I instantly stopped 
motionless to see whether they would settle again, 
when one of them, which had flown to a short 
distance, turned and flew rapidly back straight at 
my face, turning only when within three or four 
inches of my nose, and then suddenly whisking 
off with a distinct " click" at turning. 

AU the instances thus far given relate to the 
family Nymphalidae, and therefore the following 
instance recorded by Kev. A. E. Eaton of Eng- 
land is of unusual interest. He states that he 
heard Parnassius apoUo make a rustling noise by 
" slowly flapping her wings " while clinging to a 
flower, "and scraping the hinder pair with her 
four posterior legs, which were thrust backwards 
simultaneously each time that the wings opened ; " 
it continued to do this even after \hQ front wings 
were firmly held, but stopped when the hind wings 
were seized. 

The only persons who seem to have endeavored 
to discover the cause of these sounds are the late 
Mr. Doubleday and Messrs. Swinton and Hamp- 
son. Mr. Doubleday examined the species of the 
genus Ageronia in the British Museum in vain for 
any sufficient cause drawn from the external struc- 
ture of the animal. He found certain peculiarities, 



94 BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 

one of them a cavity on the under side of the 
upper wing near the region of the costal nervure, 
and another in the swollen part of the costal ner- 
vure of the same wing, both of them parts not 
covered by the hind wings in flight. He rightly 
disclaims any attempt to discover "a connection 
between either of these peculiarities in structure 
and the sound produced by the insect." Mr, 
Swinton, however, in several places has attempted 
to show that the base of the anal veins of the front 
wing in the stridulous Yanessini and in Ageronia 
has a certain structure comparable to a file or 
lima, parallel indentations or slight striae being seen 
across its surface under a strong magnifying power. 
But this explanation can in no way answer, be- 
cause an exactly similar feature may be fomid in 
all the other veins of all these butterflies, there 
being nothing distinctive in the veins themselves, 
either in the front or hind wing, in the regions 
which naturally overlap. When one examines, 
however, the Yanessini of the temperate regions, 
he will discover that the hind wings are in many 
cases furnished not only with scales but with long, 
pointed bristles, and I at first thought that these 
bristles might be the cause of the sounds, although 
they seemed to be just as abundant in other parts 



BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 95 

of the wing as in those which were naturally cov- 
ered by the opposite wing. But this peculiarity is 
not found at all in Ageronia. 

If, however, one will examine the surfaces 
brought into contact between the two wings in the 
insects known to produce audible sound, he will 
note that nearly all the scales on the under surface 
of the front wing and those on the upper surface 
of the hind wing next the base, that is, in just 
those portions of the wing which overlap each 
other, are much smaller and more erect than in 
any other part of the wing, even than those in the 
immediate vicinity ; and by experiment can show 
that when these portions of the wing are rubbed 
together a rustling noise is produced, while in 
other butterflies, such as Brenthis, not nearly so 
much contrast appears. In Ageronia these scales 
have also a more or less conical shape, as if to 
intensify the sound produced by their rubbing, but 
of course one could not imitate by clumsy motion 
of the hand any possible " click " from this source. 

Mr. G. F. Hampson, however, by dissection of 
Ageronia, has probably discovered the precise 
instrumentation by which the " click " is effected. 
At the base of the inner margin of the fore wing 
he finds a pair of curved horny hooks with enlarged 



96 BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 

extremities, so placed ttat when the fore wing is 
moved up and down they play upon a pair of some- 
what similar processes attached to the thorax ; 
these being abruptly released from contact when 
the wing reaches a certain angle, would be likely 
to produce a snapping sound or " click." 

Many observers have noted the peculiar move- 
ments of the wings of butterflies which are not 
accompanied by audible sounds, especially in the 
family Lycaenidae, where the hinder wings alone, 
erect when the insect is at rest, are rubbed to- 
gether in a curious way, giving them " the appear- 
ance of revolving disks," as Mr. Wallace calls it ; 
and many observers have attempted to discover 
whether any sound followed this motion, but none 
have succeeded in doing so. Yet any other expla- 
nation of the intent of the movement would seem 
to be almost out of place, inasmuch as it is invari- 
ably made by certain species, including many of 
our own native kinds, directly upon alighting, and 
at a time when there may well be no butterflies in 
sight. 

This movement of the hind wings has been 
repeatedly seen and remarked upon by observers 
in all parts of the world. Swinton thought he had 
found the source of the possible sound that may 



BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 97 

result (none is perceptible to hiunan ears) in tlie 
structure of the lowest vein of tlie front wing. He 
examined Callopkrys rubi, and states that the vein 
is bare and " crossed at uniform distances by pro- 
nounced striae, which indicate internal diaphragms 
and constrict into a series of bead-like formations." 
This statement has been accepted without exami- 
nation by some entomologists, yet it is not true. 
The vein is never bare of scales except when they 
have been rubbed off, and the markings seen by 
Swinton are either the threads of the inclosed 
tracheae or the lines of pockets for the attachment 
of the abraded scales. But what one does find (in 
all Lycaeninae, apparently, certainly in all of our 
species) is that in the lowest interspace of the 
front wing, next the inner margin, there is a patch 
of scales of a different character and setting from 
any other scales on the under surface. The patch 
does not reach the base of the wing, nor extend 
much if any beyond the basal third of the wing, 
but occupies the whole width of the interspace, 
and is found in male and female alike, just as the 
wing movement is shared by both sexes ; the scales 
are slenderer than those about them, subfusiform 
and bluntly pointed, and very often erect or nearly 
erect ; but they have one other important quality 



98 BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 

wldcli it seems to me signalizes their use, in that 
in the midst of scales more lightly attached and 
easily removed than are those of any other but- 
terflies, it is impossible to remove one of these 
without breaking the wing ; they are firmly set 
bristle-scales, and on the opposing part of the hind 
wings, in the marginal interspace, is a similar 
patch, not so characteristic, of rounded pavement- 
like scales. If any noise is produced by the move- 
ment of the wings, it must be by the agency of 
these two opposing fields. 

Special movements of some sort are made by a 
majority of butterflies ; as for instance in most of 
our Argynnini and other Nymphalinae, which gen- 
tly wave their wings upward and downward upon 
aHghting, as if panting from their exertions. A 
marked instance of this is seen in the Red Admiral 
(Vanessa atalanta). Still more striking instances 
are the quivering movements of the male settled 
beside the female ; or of a butterfly eagerly suck- 
ing a flower when another alights beside it, and is 
thus warned to " keep its distance." These mo- 
tions I am inclined to regard as movements for the 
sake of producing sound, though the sounds are 
inaudible to our ears. It is probable that this is 
on account of their faintness. There is a limit to 



BUTTERFLY SOUNDS 99 

human perceptibility of sounds from their shrill- 
ness and also from their feebleness. It is known, 
but perhaps not well known, that there are a cer- 
tain number of saltatorial Orthoptera which can 
be seen to stridulate but whose sounds are inaudi- 
ble to our ears. From the fact that certain but- 
terflies produce sound during certain movements, 
we can hardly fail to believe that other butterflies 
making the same motion also produce sound, al- 
though inaudible to our ears. 

Nor are the sounds made by these friends of 
ours altogether limited to the butterfly state, a 
large number of caterpillars making sounds by 
striking their heads against the leaf upon which 
they are resting, or by swinging the head from 
side to side, catching the mandibles in the rough- 
nesses of the leaf or upon the silken strands which 
they have spun upon it, to produce a scraping 
sound to drive away intruders ; and Schild states 
that the chrysalis of the Green Hair-streak (Callo- 
phrys rubi) when disturbed produces by its move- 
ments a slight sharp chirp, or, as Kleeman called 
it in 1774, a clicking noise. But though I have 
seen many chrysalids of Nymphalidae in exces- 
sively active motion, I have never observed any 
sound from this source. 



IX. 

NESTS AND OTHER STRUCTURES MADE BY 
CATERPILLARS 

There is considerable difference among tlie 
caterpillars of butterflies as to the amount of silk 
they spin. Some, and this is especially true of 
the Lycaenidae, and next of the Pierinae, spin very 
little and have apparently little use for it, being 
able to make their way about without weaving a 
carpet whereon to cling, though they ordinarily 
do spin some. Others seem unable to take a 
single step without laboriously spinning a thread 
wherever they would go, fastening it upon this side 
and that, and without it will venture nowhere. 
As a general rule nests of any sort are constructed 
only by the last-named, i. e. by those most depend- 
ent upon a hold on silken strands to make their 
way. Yet there is one notable exception in a 
Mexican Pierid which constructs a web nearly as 
close as parchment. 

Nests, which are almost solely for purposes of 



NESTS MADE BY CATERPILLARS 101 

concealment, are very generally made by those 
caterpillars of butterflies wbich are gregarious, but 
tbere is one kind made by New England social 
caterpillars wbicb bas no such purpose and which 
is perhaps too simple to be properly called a 
nest. This is the web made, particularly in earlier 
life, by the caterpillars of the Mourning Cloak 
(Euvanessa antiopa), which move about much 
from place to place, spinning wherever they go, so 
that at last the line of movement, by successive 
strands thrown across every angle a twig makes 
with the larger stem, forms a sort of veil of silk 
over which they crawl with extreme rapidity, but 
without which their movements are greatly re- 
tarded. 

Some caterpillars have a favorite place of 
repose to which they come after every meal and 
which they carpet with silk for greater comfort. 
Of such are some of the swallow-tails, and it would 
seem as if the nest they constructed were at first 
an accidental result of this habit, perfected by its 
protective adaptation. These caterpillars rest upon 
the middle of the upper surface of a leaf, upon the 
floor of which they have stretched a silken carpet 
from side to side, each strand shorter than the last, 
so as to make the edges curl toward each other 



102 NESTS AND OTHER STRUCTURES 

and sometimes to meet, and thus to form an open 
nest. 

The most common form of nest, however, is that 
in which different parts of the same leaf or adja- 
cent parts of different leaves are fastened together 
by silken strands. The simplest and weakest of 
these are made by the caterpillars of the Green 
Comma (Polygonia faunus) and the Red Admiral 
(Vanessa atalanta), which fasten together very 
weakly the opposite edges of a single large leaf so 
as just to make them meet ; but the threads are so 
slight that they are ruptured with the slightest 
effort. The caterpillar within, having thus secured 
a shelter, seems loth to leave it and makes its meals 
from its own dwelling, imtil, having literally eaten 
itself out of house and home, it is forced to venture 
forth and construct another. 

Another form of nest made from a single leaf 
is constructed by all the higher skippers, Hesperini, 
in early hfe, and by many of them throughout life, 
by folding over a little piece of leaf, and fastening 
the edge to the opposite surface by a few loose 
strands of silk ; to effect this they first bite a little 
channel into the leaf at just such a place as to 
leave a fragment of leaf neither too large nor too 
small to serve as a roof when they shall have 



MADE BY CATERPILLARS 103 

turned it over ; often they have to cut two chan- 
nels in order to procure a flap sufficiently smaU 
for their purposes ; and it is curious to watch one 
of these tender creatures, just as soon as it has 
devoured its egg-shell, struggling with a tough oak- 
leaf to build for itself a house. These nests are 
much more firmly made, the silken fastenings being 
.composed of many strands, often very tough. On 
leaving one nest to construct a larger, the cater- 
pillar always, I believe, first bites off the threads 
of the old nest and gives the flap a chance to resume 
its position, which, however, it rarely fully does. 
When older, many of these same skippers find a 
single leaf of their food-plant too small to conceal 
them, and so they draw several leaves together just 
as they grow upon the plant, and, retaining them 
in the desired place by silken bands, live within 
the leafy bower. This mode of construction is 
adopted almost from the first by the Pamphilini 
which feed on grasses, the proximity of adjoining 
blades near the base affording a good chance to 
attach them together, while a cluster of blades 
furnishes a similar chance to construct the some- 
what tubular nest they require when they have 
grown large and fat. 

A nest composed of several leaves is not made 



104 NESTS AND OTHER STRUCTURES 

by many otlier of our butterflies. The Red Ad- 
miral (Vanessa atalanta), however, especially 
when it is more tban half grown, finds it easier to 
attach neighboring leaves of the thickly growing 
nettle than to find one sufficiently free to use it 
only ; so that fully one half of the nests of the 
larger caterpillars are made from a number of 
leaves ; the nest is always roomy, capable of hous- 
ing several caterpillars, though never containing 
more than one. 

The nesting habits of the Red Admiral are 
shared by the other species of Vanessa, with certain 
slight variations. In early fife the Painted Lady 
(V. cardui) tries to make the stiif and crenulate 
edges of thistle-leaves meet together, but with 
indifferent success, and so fills in the interstices 
with an exceedingly thin web, in no way conceal- 
ing it from sight. In after-life it forms an oval nest 
of the size of a pigeon's egg^ by fastening adjoining 
leaves together very shghtly, and filling all the 
interstices with a similar flimsy web, upon which 
it fastens, or into which it weaves, bits of eaten 
leaf or parts of the inflorescence of the plant, stiU 
imperfectly concealing it from sight; and some- 
times it hangs itself up for chrysalis within the 
same narrow, and by this time very filthy, apart- 



'^^1 



f^ 



•^^-^ 



2 



.- ri 



V 5 




V' 






CATERPILLAR NESTS 



MADE BY CATERPILLARS 105 

ment. The Painted Beauty (Y. huntera) makes 
a similar but roimder nest on the everlasting, and 
conceals itseK very effectually by completely cover- 
ing the more compact but stiU very slight web, 
with the inflorescence of the plant. 

Another class of nests is that made by some of 
our Melitaeini (Cinclidia and Euphydryas), which, 
living in company, cover at first a few leaves, then 
the whole head of the plant, and eventually, some- 
times, the whole plant in a tolerably firm web, 
within which the company feed, until the whole 
becomes a nasty mess of half-eaten and drying 
leaves, and all sorts of frass, including their own 
excrement and cast-off pellicles, everywhere tangled 
with web. Within such a nest they hibernate, 
but not until they have strengthened it with denser 
web and drawn the leaves of the head more tightly, 
so that it becomes a mere bunch which one may 
cover with his hand, and which contracts the more, 
apparently as winter approaches. In the spring 
they evidently have had enough of this sort of 
communal life, and live thereafter in the open 
air. 

But perhaps the most interesting nest of all is 
that made by the caterpillar of the Viceroy. This 
caterpillar hibernates when partly grown, and 



106 NESTS AND OTHER STRUCTURES 

provides for the occasion a winter residence, which 
is occupied only during the cold season. For this 
purpose it eats the sides of a willow-leaf nearly to 
the midrib, for about one third the distance from 
the tip, ordinarily selecting for the purpose a leaf 
near the end of a twig ; the opposite edges of the 
rest of this leaf it brings together, and not only 
fastens them firmly with silk but covers this nest 
outside and inside with a carpet of light-brown 
glossy silk, so that the leaf is nearly hidden ; nor 
is this all : it travels back and forth on the leaf- 
stalk and around the twig, spinning its silk as it 
goes, until the leaf is firmly attached to the stalk, 
and in spite of frost and wind will easily hang 
until spring. Following the projecting midrib, 
the caterpillar creeps into this dark cell, head fore- 
most, and closes the openmg with its liinder seg- 
ments, all abristle with spines and warts. The 
other species of the same genus, the red-spotted 
and the banded purple, have the same habits ; the 
latter feeds on birches, and if we examine these 
trees in early spring, when all sorts of ichneumon 
flies are just beginning to wander about in search 
of prey, we can hardly fail to be struck by the de- 
ceptive resemblance these hibernacula of the banded 
purple bear to the opening buds and curving ter- 



MADE BY CATERPILLARS 107 

minal shoots of the very twig on wliicli they occur ; 
the color of the soft down of the buds and the 
enveloping silk of the hibernacula is as similar as 
are their forms, and this mimetic resemblance is 
doubtless as effective as it is interesting. 



X. 

POSTURES OF BUTTERFLIES AT EEST AXD ASLEEP 

Butterflies, as a general rule, are very dainty 
about alighting after flight, appearing to regard 
the position they shall take with some concern, 
hesitating more or less about the place they 
choose ; sometimes they hover about a spot or 
approach and leave it many times before pitching ; 
at others two or three quivers of the wing are all 
that indicate their daintiness. Moths, on the 
contrary, usually come plump to a stop and settle, 
much as if they had been thrown at the spot; 
while among the butterflies, those that in this 
respect resemble the moths the most closely are 
the lowest family, the skippers, and some N}Tn- 
phalidae which are protected by their colors when 
alight. 

Alighted only for a brief rest, or to sun them- 
selves, or to suck the juices of some flower, butter- 
flies usually keep the wings more or less spread 
wide open ; though in feeding, especially if it be 



AT REST AND ASLEEP 109 

in companies, or at rest for a longer time, or, as 
it were, for observation, tlie wings are usually 
closed tightly back to back; among the Pam- 
philini, however, there is a very prevalent custom 
which oddly combines these two, the hind wings 
being held horizontal, the fore wings perpendicu- 
lar or a little oblique ; this gives them a curiously 
disjointed look, the purpose of which is not easy 
to see ; perhaps a comparative study of the atti- 
tudes in males and females, or in those species in 
which the males have and those where they have 
not a discal stigma, may lead to some result. 

The need of feeding with erect wings is plain 
enough in certain instances, as where crowds 
mingle along the edge of a muddy rut in the 
road ; and that the same posture is almost invari- 
ably assumed at complete rest, as for the night,i 
is also easily explained, since that presents the 
least exposed surface, and one which far more 
than the upper side of the wings, sometimes very 
completely, resembles in tint and often in texture 
or markings the background chosen for rest. 

No creatures seem to be more sensitive than 

^ Some Hesperini, which rest by day with outspread wings, 
sleep with roofed wings like moths, and very likely all of 
them do ; we know little of their sleeping attitudes. 



110 POSTURES OF BUTTERFLIES 

butterflies to warmth and sunshine. We have 
alluded in another place to the diurnal movements 
of even hibernating butterflies ; and one is amused 
at watching with what precision a Melitaeid, for 
example, or a Polygonia, sidles around on alight- 
ing, to expose the broadest possible surface to the 
sun. Startle one of the latter, but not sufficiently 
to make it leave the spot, and with what a snap 
the wings close, and, in place of the burning colors 
which seem to have imbibed the sun's warmth, 
your butterfly, with the dead leaf or dusty color 
of its imder-surface brought to view, has become 
nearly invisible. 

Butterflies are not much given to walking, but 
in the use of their legs they have many little 
peculiarities which generally mark whole groups. 
Thus the Satyrids always walk by a series of 
nervous twitches in a very bunghng fashion un- 
known, I believe, outside of this group. Many 
Theclini never remain on the surface of the leaf 
or twig on which they have pitched facing in the 
direction in which they have alighted, but turn 
part way around to face another way, and that 
with no reference to the sun ; they do the same 
when the sun is wholly obscured. 

At sleep, the wings are packed away into the 



AT REST AND ASLEEP 111 

smallest compass, as already stated ; with tlie 
exception of some Hesperini,i the wings are held 
erect back to back, the fore wings slid down be- 
tween the hind pair, so that only the latter and 
the apex and front edge of the former are visible. 
There is, however, more variety in the method of 
treating the antennae ; some, like the Satyrinae, 
sleeping with these wide spread, others tucking 
them between the wings, others bringing them 
together beside the front edge of the wings ; 
sometimes only the stalks of the antennae He 
between the wings, the clubs appearing beyond as 
if crowded out by the tight shutting of the wings. 
In all cases where the antennae are brought to- 
gether this is the final action of the butterfly 
before complete repose ; at first the antennae 
remain without, looking in different directions like 
sentinels ; and it is only gradually that they are 
brought to the position of complete rest. 

The moralist tells us, and his warniug is sec- 
onded by the psychologist, that as every repetition 
of an action makes it easier than before, so any 
propensity indulged in wears ruts, as it were, in 

1 Wittfeld, however, says that the southern Euphoeades 
palamedes sleeps with spread wings, and I have seen a 
European Thais do the same in confinement. 



112 POSTURES OF BUTTERFLIES 

our character, and habits become fixed; it is 
easier to travel given roads than others, and, 
what is fullest of portent, our propensities are 
plainly bequeathed to our descendants. The lives 
of frivolous butterflies admonish us in like fa- 
shion. Observe how wonderfully alike are the 
actions of butterflies of the same group, i. e., 
descendants of the same stock ; their habits have 
become ingrained by repetition through the ages ; 
habits which it were almost certain destruction 
not to obey, since in nearly every one some pro- 
tective meaning may be found ; habits which run 
so through groups that the keen observer may 
foretell the apparently imtrammeled actions of 
creatures he has never seen alive, with as great 
a percentage of accuracy as the best - informed 
" clerk of the weather " may predict the action of 
the morrow's winds. 

The behavior of butterflies, then, has clearly its 
story to tell of the past and its relationships, and 
we shall not be likely to reach the fairest conclu- 
sions regarding the phylogeny of butterflies until 
we have given these their full value. Up to the 
present no proper investigation has been made in 
this direction ; only a few of the most patent of 
the tricks and ways of butterflies have been 



AT REST AND ASLEEP 113 

noted; a wide and open field lies before the in- 
quirer, and it is for his use that I have tried now 
and then to bring together a few facts concerning 
the postures and behavior of butterflies in differ- 
ent circumstances. These are, however, still too 
few whereon to base any general statements likely 
to require no important modification on future 
investigation, and I leave them for the present 
barren of result, in the hope of enticing some one 
to enter a promising field, and perchance relieve 
these facts of their present stupidity. 



XI. 

THE EGGS OF BUTTERFLIES 

The eggs of butterflies, except those of the 
gigantic Ornithopteras, are no larger than a pin's 
head, yet when examined under a lens, which is of 
course required to see the structure of such minute 
objects, we may look far before discovering any- 
thing more graceful in form or delicate in sculp- 
ture ; indeed, chancing to study some of our forms 
during a winter spent in Egypt, I was greatly 
struck by their singular resemblance to the trace- 
ried domes of the famous Cairo mosques. They are 
composed of a thin, elastic, and usually transpar- 
ent pellicle — so elastic that they will bound like a 
rubber ball when falling on a hard surface ; where 
not transparent they are made opaque by cross- 
lines or ribs, by a general reticulation, or in some 
lower forms (Pamphilini) by a uniform density of 
the whole integument. They are always circular 
in cross-section, and in general are flattened on 
the surface of rest ; by their form they may be 



EGGS OF BUTTERFLIES 115 

divided into four classes : (1) barrel-shaped, (2) 
spherical, (3) tiarate or turban-shaped, and (4) 
hemispherical ; or, if we consider their surface sculp- 
ture, into three groups : (a) ribbed, (6) reticulate, 
and (c) smooth. These divisions run into each 
other to a greater or less degree, and nearly all 
possible combinations are found. With rare excep- 
tions nearly allied forms closely resemble each 
other, and the degree of resemblance is in general 
an excellent test of affinity. Not only can species 
and genera be distinguished by oological charac- 
ters, but many of the larger groups, even as far as 
the broadest natural divisions of butterflies, may 
not infrequently be defined in terms of the Qgg^ so 
that it even becomes a valuable aid to classifica- 
tion. 

The barrel-shaped form is sometimes very much 
attenuated at both ends, so as better to be de- 
scribed as spindle-shaped, and it is nearly always 
broader at the base than at the summit, so as to 
merit the term pyramidal, sometimes much broader, 
as in Speyeria. The truncate top is also very fre- 
quently rounded and its edge inconspicuous, and it 
then runs into the spherical or hemispherical class ; 
but the true barrel-shaped group is always higher 
than broad. The Nymphalidae and Pierinae al- 



116 THE EGGS 

most always belong to tliis group, and they are 
always vertically ribbed to some extent, but tbe 
ribs always terminate short of the centre of the 
summit, either gently or abruptly. Sometimes 
these ribs are coarse and irregular, running in zig- 
zag lines from base to summit, so that the Qgg 
might almost be regarded as coarsely reticulate; 
in others the ribs are excessively compressed, mere 
films, placed edgewise to the body of the Qgg^ glis- 
tening in the sunshine like dew-drops, and increas- 
ing in size to the summit, where they often form a 
sort of crown ; or they may die out on the lower 
half of the Q^g^ or fade into a weaker reticulation ; 
or, above, may terminate at the edge of a saucer- 
like depression which forms the cap of the egg ; 
but everywhere, with more or less distinctness, be- 
tween these buttressing ribs, the surface of the egg 
is broken into quadrangular cells by delicate cross- 
ridges, which often increase in stoutness toward 
the main ribs, and in their turn buttress them. 

The spherical forms include particularly the 
Papilioninae, some Satyrinae and the Hesperini, 
unless these last more properly belong to the pre- 
ceding group. They are usually smooth, but may 
also be reticulated, or, as always in the Hesperini, 
ribbed. 




5 



1 



^ 



I 3 




^'h ;^ 









13 



11 



12 






14 



EGGS OF BUTTERFLIES 



OF BUTTERFLIES 117 

The tiarate eggs are very beautiful objects, often 
reminding one of a miniature sea-urcbin without 
spines, and are cbaracteristic of the Lycaenidae, 
though some of them incline toward the hemispher- 
ical form, and all, without exception, are reticu- 
late. In these the surface is never ribbed, but 
generally covered with a heavy network of deep 
pits, whose bounding walls are rather coarse and 
rough. The eggs of the Parnassians resemble 
them closely. 

Finally the hemispherical eggs, generally more 
than haK as high as broad, and with a slight flat- 
tened summit, are smooth, and comprise only the 
Pamphilini, if we except the reticulated Heodes, 
which possibly belongs here as much as with the 
turban-shaped eggs. 

As an architectural form, the egg of a butterfly 
is exquisitely patterned. With all the variation in 
sculpture and contour, every curve and every detail 
of chiseling is in subordination to a central fea- 
ture — all lead up to a distinct culminating area, 
the micropyle, or little rosette of cells of the most 
exquisite delicacy, which crowns the summit of the 
central vertical axis. Often requiring some of 
the higher powers of the microscope to discern, the 
cells are arranged in such definite and regular pat- 



118 THE EGGS 

terns tliat in looking at them we seem to be peer- 
ing tlirougli tlie circular rose-window of a minia- 
ture Gothic cathedral. Sometimes, in the tiarate 
eggs, this rosette is situated at the bottom of a 
very deep and narrow well, and can with difficulty- 
be seen. Often their patterns would furnish use- 
ful hints to the decorator, and especially for all 
forms of embroidery. The cells which form the 
interior of the rosette are the points at which 
microscopic pores lead into the interior of the Qgg^ 
and through which it is fertilized. With this in 
view, we can understand why this rosette should 
form the goal of movement of every part of the 
structure. 

When freshly laid, the eggs are generally of 
some shade of pale green, though in the Pamphi- 
lini, with their opaque shells, they are nearly 
chalky white ; but during the development of the 
caterpillar (or of parasites) within, all sorts of 
colors may be assumed, often of a rich or almost 
gaudy hue. 

The eggs of butterflies are always laid in full 
view excepting that in a few instances they are 
partially concealed by being thrust into crevices. 
Usually hatching in a few days, they are generally 
laid upon the very leaves the caterpillar will eat or 



OF BUTTERFLIES 119 

upon the stem close at hand ; but when, as in some 
cases (only known among Lycaenidae), the Qg^ 
remains all winter, the butterfly selects the stem, 
and, as an additional protection, chooses a spot 
next a leaf -bud, or other projection, or tucks the 
egg in some crevice of the bark. It is even stated 
by Salesbury, according to Rennie, and repeated 
by European writers, that the egg of the Black- 
veined White (Aporia crataegi) may last three 
years and then hatch, but the statement seems to 
me fairly open to doubt until verified. For ordi- 
narily the eggs of this species are laid in clusters 
(whether on leaf or twig I find no statement), and 
give birth the same year to caterpillars which win- 
ter in small clusters in webs. All butterflies 
which winter as eggs feed as caterpillars on trees 
or shrubs, never so far as known on herbaceous 
plants. As a general rule the eggs are laid singly, 
but in not a few cases, oftenest found in the 
Nymphalidae and Papilionidae, they are laid in 
clusters of from two or three to several hundreds. 
Sometimes these are rude bunches piled loosely or 
in layers one upon another ; sometimes they are 
laid in more or less regular single or double rows ; 
sometimes in a single column of three, or four, or 
even as many as ten eggs, one atop another; or 
they may girdle a twig like a fairy ring. 



XII. 

PSYCHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES IN OUR BUTTER- 
FLIES 

When I first mentioned to a company of friends 
my intention to write an essay on this subject, a 
scornful laugh greeted me, as if I were testing 
their credulity. Yet no one, I fancy, could be a 
close observer of butterflies without noticing that, 
while there is no great difference between healthy 
individuals of the same species, there is as great a 
variety of temperament between different kinds as 
there is between different sorts of quadrupeds, to 
write an essay on whose psychological characters 
would excite no special comment ; for the timidity 
of the hare, the cunning of the fox, the ferocity of 
the wolf, and other psychical characteristics of 
various beasts have become proverbial. 

In their relation to man one recognizes a great 
difference between butterflies as to how companion- 
able they may be. According to some writers, 
there would seem to be a certain variation among 



PSYCHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES 121 

tlie same kinds in different places, just as with 
other animals, according to the frequency with 
which they come in contact with man. Thus 
DeCandolle remarks that in the Swiss Alps the 
butterflies have no fear of man and readily settle 
on the colored dresses worn by the women, while 
on the better-inhabited plains they are not known 
to do anything of the kind. Their fear of man or 
their boldness is to a certain degree dependent upon 
their power of flight, as Belt has remarked in his 
"Naturalist in Nicaragua," the swiftest and strong- 
est flyers allowing one to approach much nearer 
than those with weaker wings, feeling confident 
that they can dart away from any threatened 
danger. Yet entirely apart from this, one may 
roughly divide butterflies into domestic and feral, 
according to their habits and sympathies. Thus 
among the feral tribes should be ranked nearly all 
the Satyrinae, and especially such forms as the 
Arctic Satyr (Oeneis jutta), the Pearly Eye 
(Enodia portlandia), and the Little Wood Satyr 
(Cissia eurytus), and among the companionable 
sorts nearly all the species of Yanessini. In- 
stances of the boldness and even friendliness of 
the latter are not uncommon. 

'* While I Hngered here [says Abbott, one of our hap- 



122 PSYCHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES 

piest describers of the habits of beasts and birds] a 
pretty butterfly, the Red Admiral, alighted upon my 
knee as I was writing, and seemed wholly at ease in this 
unusual position. Something upon my clothes was 
attractive to it, and the graceful movements of its pro- 
boscis, and occasional down-dipping of one antenna and 
then the other, were amusing. I noticed that the right 
and left wing moved separately down and up, as though 
to retain the creature's balance, which the wind threat- 
ened, and at each such movement of the wings the cor- 
responding antennae likewise dipped. This butterfly 
occasionally flew to the bushes near by, but never to 
remain long away, and sooner or later returned and was 
my companion for a great part of the day." 

Instances of tlie vivacious and inquisitive ways of 
these butterflies are numerous. The entomologist 
cannot fail to be aware of them. Seeing one 
alight upon the tip of a bough near by he strikes 
at it with his net, only to see it fly off in an appar- 
ent paroxysm of terror, while if he but stop a mo- 
ment he will see the runaway return, dash about 
him, and alight again upon the self -same spot in 
a defiant way, flirting its wings up and down, as 
who should say, "Try it again, will you?" For 
there is much that is sportive as well in the ways 
of many butterflies. One of my favorite modes of 
showing this characteristic to unbelieving friends 



IN OUR BUTTERFLIES 123 

has been to toss my cap high in the air, when these 
butterflies will often dart, dash at, and play around 
it as it begins again to descend. DeGarmo has 
noticed this characteristic, as witness the following 
passage : — 

" One of the most curious features of a butterfly's life 
is its sportive or playful moods and ways. It was some 
time before I appreciated the fact that they indulged in 
such moods at all. Seeing them start vigorously after 
other insects on the wing, I assumed without investiga- 
tion that these were movements in self-defense, tiU all 
the facts pointed to them as movements in play. This 
opened a new and interesting field of observation. The 
spirit of playfulness I found to prevail more towards 
sundown than in the morning. Only a very few times 
have I seen any signs of it in the morning and never in 
the absence of sunshine. I found it far more common 
among the highly developed four-footed butterflies, as 
the Graptas, Vanessas, etc., than among the six-footed 
Papilios. . . . The greatest manifestation of fun and 
frolic was in a group of alopes, some thirty in number, 
clustered under a tree in the shade. Such wild gam- 
bols on the wing I never saw, often in one compact 
cluster, wings and legs and antennae in a confused 
jumble, then ofB in pairs, then in two crowds, with all 
the marks of ' mirth and jocund din.' Such scenes do 
certainly appear like an intelligent appreciation of 
fun, as they clearly have no reference to any necessary 



124 PSYCHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES 

functions of body, and seem intended only for gratifi- 
cation." 

It is but a short step from tliese characteristics 
to that of pugnacity, which is manifested by none 
of our o^vn butterflies so conspicuously as by the 
American Copper (Heodes hypophlaeas). Watch 
one on a hot and sunny day in a favorable place, 
and you will see the fellow dart at every passing 
object, be it butterfly large or small, or even a 
blmidering grasshopper. So, too, the Buckeye 
(Junonia coenia) has been described by Jones as 
" a most pugnacious little creature, and appears to 
love a quarrel, for you may see three or four of 
them ascending in the air and buffeting each other, 
now rising, now falling, unremittingly continuing 
their aerial warfare." 

How totally different this from the sluggish, lazy, 
easy-going manner of most of the Satyrids, with 
their dainty ways, tossing themselves in graceful 
throws in and out the shrubbery ; or the hurried 
direct way of the species of Argynnis, or better of 
Eurymus, zigzagging from spot to spot as if on 
business of the greatest urgency, though not quite 
certain where it was ; or the bustling self-impor- 
tant actions of the larger skippers. Even in the 
butterflies of wilder spots, less frequently seen, how 



IN OUR BUTTERFLIES 125 

great a difference between the timid Gray- veined 
WMte (Pieris oleracea), which, though it feeds 
upon the produce of the garden, will scarcely let 
you approach in any near proximity, and the showy 
Eed-banded Purple (Basilarchia arthemis) that 
will allow you to approach and pick it up with the 
fingers. What a contrast between the dignified 
Monarch (Anosia plexippus) moving imperturbably 
along its own way, undisturbed by the attacks of 
the smaller butterflies which dash about it, and the 
vascillating dainty blues which cannot make up 
their minds just what to do ; or between the wary 
artful White Mountain butterfly (Oeneis semidea) 
and the bold and careless Tiger Swallow-tail 
(Jasoniades glaucus). How rarely one sees collected 
in one spot on a flower or about a moist spot more 
than two or three American Coppers (Heodes hypo- 
phlaeas) ; they are too vicious and quarrelsome to 
be companionable. How different the equally active 
but eminently social Clouded Sulphur (Eurymus 
philodice) or Red-banded Purple (Basflarchia 
arthemis), which congregate by hundreds, as do 
also the Tiger Swallow-tail (Jasoniades glaucus) 
and many others. The cunning ways of the 
White Mountain butterfly (Oeneis semidea) in its 
rocky defenses are elsewhere mentioned, and a simi- 



126 PSYCHOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES 

lar wiliuess appears in others, sometimes shown in 
a mock stupidity, as it were, flying, as you cau- 
tiously pursue, just beyond tlie reacli of your net, 
moving witli greater and greater swiftness as you 
increase your speed, all the while against the wind, 
when suddenly, after a quick movement upward, 
they open their wings to the breeze and are car- 
ried far behind you, thus evading the pursuit 
which they found becoming irksome, and leaving 
you heading the wrong way. 



XIII. 

SOCIAL CATERPILLARS 

As a general rule, caterpillars of butterflies live 
solitary lives throughout their entire existence. 
The mother drops an egg here and there upon a 
spot suitable for the food of its young, and here the 
caterpillar takes up its abode with more or fewer 
wanderings. In two of the four families of butter- 
flies there is scarcely a single exception known to 
this rule, but in the highest family and in a few 
instances in the Papilionidae, caterpillars during 
at least a portion of their lives are more or less 
gregarious. Whenever the caterpillars are strictly 
gregarious, the eggs are invariably laid in clusters ; 
there are, however, some butterflies which lay their 
eggs in small clusters, whose caterpillars are not 
properly gregarious ; yet aU such are closely re- 
lated to others whose caterpillars are gregarious, so 
that we find every gradation from solitary to social. 
There are also some caterpillars which are gre- 
garious in their early life, but afterward part com- 



128 SOCIAL CATERPILLARS 

pany. In such cases the caterpillar usually liiber- 
nates, and its social life lasts to some degree 
throughout the autumn and winter, the company 
dispersing at the renewal of activity in the spring. 
Indeed, in almost all cases, the association is most 
conspicuous in early life, when the caterpillars feed 
in rows upon the same leaf in such close proximity 
that it would seem to interfere mth convenience. 
Sometimes this is the only mark of their social na- 
ture; but as all caterj)illars spin more or less silk 
in moving about, a web of greater or less extent 
generally accompanies a colony, and in some cases 
the community constructs a close structure within 
which they retire to rest or to moult. A Mexican 
butterfly, allied to our sulphurs, constructs a web, 
first noticed by Hardy, which is nearly as close as 
parchment. With rare exceptions, all butterfly 
caterpillars feed upon the outside of plants ; but 
there are a few which live in the interior, and one 
of these, an Indian species of Lycaenidae, is known 
to be social, living in numbers within the fruit of 
the pomegranate. 

Among our own butterflies, there is nearly every 
gradation from brief and partial companionship 
up to a social life which lasts throughout the entire 
period of larval existence. The weakest form of 



SOCIAL CATERPILLARS 129 

social life is found in some of tlie Polygoniae 
(others being purely solitary), where the eggs 
being often laid in columns of from two to nine, or 
several eggs being scattered by the mother upon 
one leaf, the caterpillars in earliest life are natur- 
ally found feeding upon one leaf. Karely are 
more than four or fiNQ found in company, and each 
takes up its independent position upon the leaf 
and acts as if the others were not present. As, 
however, it is their habit to remain upon the leaf 
until it is almost eaten, they naturally leave it at 
the same or nearly the same time, and, following 
a similar instinct, are apt to pass together to the 
nearest leaf, but scatter more or less, so that by 
degrees as they approach maturity they are found 
widely separated from each other. Yet even in 
this weakest form their numbers are often so great 
upon a single plant that when they leave it for 
pupation the chrysalids hang almost in company, 
thirty or forty spinning their silken shrouds in 
such proximity that they may be pulled down 
together. A somewhat similar or perhaps weaker 
case may be found in the Cabbage butterfly 
(Pieris rapae), which often lays a considerable 
number of eggs singly upon one plant, and the 
caterpillars, naturally seeking the interior of the 



130 SOCIAL CATERPILLARS 

cabbage-head, may often be found in close prox- 
imity. But this even more than the preceding is 
a case of mere accident, from the nature of the 
food-plant upon which they subsist. In all other 
cases of social life among our caterpillars the eggs 
are laid by the parent in decided clusters. The 
slightest of these is probably that of the Blue 
SwaUow-tail (Laertias philenor) the masses being 
ordinarily confined to a dozen or so. The cater- 
pillars in this case not only feed in company but, 
in earliest life at least, range in rows along the 
edge of the leaf they are eating, with their heads 
toward the eaten portion ; and in this way they 
live during at least the earlier half of their lives, 
scattering more or less after the third moult upon 
separate leaves, so that at maturity rarely more 
than one is found upon a single leaf, though the 
leaf of their food-plant is exceptionally large. 

This alteration of habit from companionship to 
solitariness is a natural incident due to growth. 
Up to the end of the third moult the size of the 
caterpillar has not increased enough to make it a 
conspicuous object, but by the time the third moult 
is passed the caterpillar is half grown, and during 
this stage and the next its size becomes an impor- 
tant element in its security ; and this alone is suffi- 



SOCIAL CATERPILLARS 131 

cient to account for the fact that mature cater- 
pillars of butterflies are rarely found in company. 
It is at this stage, too, that in many instances, the 
winter season overtakes the caterpillar and it hiber- 
nates ; and since in the spring it revives when the 
plants have put forth but tender leaves, impossible 
to nourish more than one or at most two such 
ravenous beasts as now come out of their winter 
quarters, such a change of habit would seem to be 
compulsory. Possibly the change in habit which 
generally takes place at this middle period of 
caterpillar life, even when winter does not intervene, 
is an inheritance from a common ancestor whose 
habits were fixed by the necessity of hibernation 
at this age. 

As far as our own fauna is concerned, the great 
mass of social caterpillars are found in the high- 
est family, the Nymphalidae, and indeed in the 
sub-family, Nymphalinae, in which this habit is 
found in most of the principal groups. In some 
instances, as we have related of the Blue Swallow- 
tail (Laertias philenor), the caterpillars in early 
life live exposed upon the surface, generally the 
under surface, of the leaf, ranged side by side, 
feeding and sleeping in unison. But in most some 
sort of web is constructed by the caterpillars upon 



132 SOCIAL CATERPILLARS 

or beneath wMcli they live, and to which, should 
they wander beyond its limits for food, they retire 
for rest and moulting. Some use this web with 
certain alterations in its structure as a winter resi- 
dence, but then invariably leave it on the approach 
of spring and part company, though often being 
still found in near proximity. Others leave it at 
the hibernating season to seek, each for himself, 
his own hiding-place. 

Perhaps of all our caterpillars, although it con- 
structs but a slender web, the Mourning Cloak 
(Euvanessa antiopa) is the most preeminently so- 
cial. The eggs are laid in a cluster of greater or 
smaller size around a terminal twig, which they 
leave together, and as if by common impulse range 
themselves side by side in compact rows along a 
chosen leaf. Even if they are separated forcibly 
from each other, they come together again and re- 
arrange themselves. When disturbed they will 
simultaneously strike an attitude of alarm and turn 
their heads in unison as if worked by a machine. 
The web they form is simply that which they make 
as they crawl about, each folloTsdng hurriedly in 
the track of its predecessor, and as it moves adding 
its thread to the carpet upon which it treads ; and 



SOCIAL CATERPILLARS 133 

being social tkroughout their life they are more 
than usually destructive to foliage, stripping branch 
after branch, and wandering to the very tips until 
these are borne down by the weight of the mass. 
It would seem probable that our Eugonia has the 
same habits from what we know of its European 
congener, but if so it is exceedingly strange that 
in only one instance has the caterpillar been seen 
in this country, and then but a single one, proba- 
bly one which was hastening to seek a place in 
which to pupate. 

Although it is not stated whether the caterpillar 
concerned belongs to a butterfly or to a moth, a 
very curious and interesting case of strict commen- 
salism has been noted by Fritz Miiller in South 
America, in which a large spiny caterpillar was 
almost invariably found accompanied by a small 
hairy caterpillar, so small as to rest securely in a 
transverse position across the back of its good- 
natured host, well concealed among its spines ; in 
proof of its continued existence at this point the 
skin of the host was hardened beneath the tread of 
its little guest, so as to have become distinctly 
more callous than in other parts. Just what ad- 
vantage this would be to either party, both be- 



134 SOCIAL CATERPILLARS 

ing feeders upon vegetable matter, it would be 
difficult to say, excepting tbat the spinous sur- 
roundings migbt well be of assistance in protecting 
tbe smaller beast. But this neat observation of 
Miiller seems to open a field of possible investiga- 
tion which may have great interest. 



XIV. 

THE FIXITY OF HABIT IN BUTTEEFLIES 

The habits of butterflies are of extreme anti- 
quity. They are ingrained into the very texture 
of their lives. They are older than, or at least 
as old as, the patterns which adorn their wings. 
Moreover butterflies have two sets of habits, and 
these statements are equally true of either. The 
habits of their earlier life as a crawling caterpillar 
find no place in their aerial life on the wing, and 
vice versa ; although in some we may find certain 
common characteristics shared by the two, as in 
the leisurely ways of the Satyrinae. 

That this is true follows from the fact that cer- 
tain special habits characterize large groups. Thus 
the mode of flight of the Satyrinae, wliich toss 
themselves lazily up and down as they move lei- 
surely from spot to spot, is found to a greater or less 
degree in all the members of the sub-family ; even 
in our White Mountain butterfly (Oeneis semidea) 
which inhabits a place and is subjected to external 



136 THE FIXITY OF HABIT 

conditions so different from tlie others ; but it is 
not found elsewhere among butterflies. Tbe cater- 
pillars of this same group are universally slow in 
their movement, there being not a rapid traveler 
among them. All the caterpillars of the Nymph- 
alini hunch themselves, the better to display their 
largest tubercles. One of the most curious in- 
stances we may cite is the habit of rubbing the 
erect hind wings together shortly after alighting 
by all or nearly all the Lycaeninae, certainly by 
members of each of its three tribes, and so far as 
we know it is done by no other butterflies. The 
darting, skipping flight of the Hesperidae is an- 
other instance, as well as the odd style in which 
the Pamphilini hold their wings when alighted and 
alert, the hind wings horizontal, the fore wings ver- 
tical or oblique. Peculiarities of nest-building are 
generally shared by a caterpillar with many allies, 
perhaps by the whole tribe to which it belongs. 
Shght tricks of movement, as of the sudden elec- 
tric flirting of the wings when alarmed, or of 
the position of the antennae, are shared by many. 
This is equally true of the manner and place of 
alighting. Who ever saw one of the Lycae- 
nini settle instantaneously hke a Pamphilid? How 
it doubts whether it has found the best place. 



IN BUTTERFLIES 137 

or whether on the whole it will alight now or 
not! 

So one might go through the whole catalogue of 
the ways and lives of butterflies to find that the 
great majority were ways and Kves not of one but 
of many, — inherited traits, become fixed in their 
lives by constant repetition. Most frequently they 
are generic habits rather than specific, often tribal 
traits, or even sub-family tricks ; this in itself 
shows that habit as a general thing must be older 
than the wing pattern. But if anything more 
were needed to show it, it would appear by the facts 
of mimicry, where pattern plainly shows a far 
greater pliancy to the summons of natural selection 
than can be affirmed of habit ; and the numerous 
cases of protective resemblance tell equally the same 
story ; here habit has often moulded pattern, or at 
most they have abetted each the other. As we 
must invariably discard the slightest notion of any- 
thing intentional on the part of the protected form, 
we cannot say, for instance, that the White Moun- 
tain butterfly alights on a gray rock, in preference 
to the ground or a twig of Yaccinium, in order to 
gain the protection afforded by the resemblance of 
the under surface of its wings to the mottled rock, 
but rather that the protective coloring arose from 



138 FIXITY OF HABIT 

its habit of alighting here, while the secondary 
habit of tilting the wings to heighten the mimicry 
arose ^pa/'i passu with the mottling. 

If all this be true, a knowledge of the out-door 
life of our friends, both as crawKng worms and as 
winged sylphs, may be of the utmost aid in attempts 
to note the interrelationships of nature ; and these 
as weU as features of actual structure must be 
accorded due weight in our classifications ; but 
neither should be divorced from its fellow. 



XV. 

HOW BUTTERFLIES PASS THE WINTER 

One would suppose that nature would have so 
arranged matters that delicate creatures like but- 
terflies, passing a portion of their lives (the chry- 
sahs) in a quiescent condition, would select the 
winter as the season in which to pass this state, 
and not waste in an enforced inactivity the pre- 
cious moments of a too brief summer, when 
flowers and succulent plants are abundant as food 
for butterfly or caterpillar. Yet a very consider- 
able proportion of the butterflies of New England 
pass the winter in some other state than that of 
the chrysalis. Some pass it in either of two or 
more states, apparently as a precaution against 
the total destruction of the species. Many pass 
the winter as caterpillars, some as eggs, and not 
a few as butterflies themselves. Many of the 
Theclini for instance pass the winter in the egg 
state, while on the other hand the Yanessini, a 
group which, whether in Europe or America, may 



140 HOW BUTTERFLIES 

be considered as almost characteristically pertain- 
ing to the temperate zone, where the winter is 
pronounced, pass the winter in the imago state. 
One reason for this is that there is nearly always 
an autumn brood of butterflies which disport 
themselves in great nimibers in the latter part of 
the year, but have not time to undergo further 
transformations so as again to reach the chrysalis 
stage before winter would cut them off ; but in 
some instances some of the chrysaHds which 
should produce the autumn brood do not give out 
the butterfly until the following spring. Accord- 
ing to Wiesenhiitter such chrysalids of the 
Mourning Cloak (Euvanessa antiopa) as pass the 
winter are presumably females, inasmuch as the 
female, according to his observation, is generally 
fresh-colored in the spring, whereas the males are 
always very much battered and worn. So far as 
we know, in the case of these wintering butterflies, 
pairing always takes place in the spring. 

Those hearing for the first time of the existence 
of butterflies in Avinter naturally inquire where 
the butterflies may pass the winter period. Each 
species has its own peculiar hiding-places, but in 
general they may be found beneath piles of rocks, 
in hollow places in the trunks of ' trees, especially 



PASS THE WINTER 141 

near the roots, beneath the rafters of old build- 
ings, in corded wood in the forest, and even in 
some instances probably simply hanging beneath 
the branches of trees. Thus Landois saw the 
European Peacock butterfly (Hamadryas io) take 
up its winter quarters in an ivy, hanging from 
a branch by its hind legs, folding all its other 
legs on its breast and closing its wings. During 
a warm spell in the early spring it disappeared, 
only, when the weather again changed, to return 
to the same spot and reassume its former position. 
Woodmen sometimes, in cleaving open a tree, 
will discover a little colony of hibernating butter- 
flies, as has been done in the case of the Monarch 
(Anosia plexippus) ; and Goossens of Paris, in 
beating small trees over his open umbrella (a 
favorite mode of collecting) in the cold days of 
November, twice brought down the Comma butter- 
fly (Polygonia c. -album) which fell upon its feet 
with closed wings. It would seem that they must 
therefore have chosen the under side of the 
branches for hibernation. He made some inter- 
esting observations upon these, bringing them home 
and placing one in an unwarmed apartment, the 
other in the open air on the northeast side of a 
window. They did not stir until February, when 



142 HOW BUTTERFLIES 

they resumed their activity. The one in the open 
air had experienced a temperature of at least 
-5°C., and Goossens discovered that numbness 
only comes on at -2°C., for when it was warmer 
their position showed that they appreciated the 
difference between day and night. At such a 
time the hind wings are kept motionless, but in 
the daytime the fore wings are advanced, so that 
the inner margin is at right angles to the body ; 
at dusk, the fore wings creep backward and finally 
pass partly behind the hind wings, nearly filling 
the empty space between the two wings in this 
genus, due to their great excision. The process 
is again reversed in the morning, showing that 
the butterflies are not completely benumbed and, 
however quiet, recognize the distinction between 
night and day. 

One November day a Mourning Cloak (Euvan- 
essa antiopa) flew into my cellar and took up its 
position on one of the risers of the stairway just 
beneath the projecting edge of the tread above, 
the extremity of its wings projecting beyond the 
tread. Here it remained for three months with- 
out moving, except that it shifted its position six 
or eight times in the course of the winter, some- 



PASS THE WINTER 143 

times forward, sometimes backward within the 
range of about an inch. At first the plane of the 
closed wings was perfectly horizontal, but about 
the middle of January they became slightly 
oblique, and the morning of the day it left its 
station the obliquity was somewhat increased. 
It was watched daily the winter through, and the 
wings were always in the attitude taken at com- 
plete repose in the summer. When on the last 
day of February it left its station it took up an- 
other, head downward on the cellar wall, near a 
window where it caught the sun's rays a part of 
the day, and here it remained motionless for five 
days more, except for slight shifts as before, and 
that when the sun struck it its antennae were 
thrust forward and parted a little instead of being 
ensconced between the wings. 

All hibernating butterflies, so far as known 
at present, belong to the Nymphalidae and Papi- 
lionidae, and almost exclusively to the Vanessini 
and Rhodocerini, neither Lycaenidae nor Hesperi- 
dae being known to hibernate in the perfect stage. 
Almost all the Vanessini of Europe as well as the 
Brimstone butterfly (Colias rhamni) are known 
to hibernate in the imago state, and in our own 



144 WINTERING BUTTERFLIES 

country Anosia plexippus, all the Polygonias, 
Eugonia j. -album, Euvanessa antiopa, Aglais mil- 
berti, all the species of Vanessa and Junonia 
coenia, as well as Hypatus baclunanii, and among 
the Rhodocerini Callidryas eubule and Xanthidia 
nicippe. 



XYI. 

THE OLDEST BUTTERFLY INHABITANTS OF NEW 
ENGLAND 

That a vast sheet of ice once covered New 
England has been so long known as to be common 
intellectual property. The great mass of drift 
which covers the entire face of the country is too 
conspicuous to be overlooked by any observing 
person. That we have indications of a former ice 
period in the present inhabitants of the district is 
perhaps not so well known by all. That such 
should be recognized among the butterflies appears 
at first blush surprising ; yet a careful investiga- 
tion of the butterfly fauna of New England, and 
its comparison with that of neighboring parts of the 
country, show that the nearest allies of no incon- 
siderable portion of our butterflies now exist in the 
far north, in regions where the summer still retains 
the retarding influence of the frozen zone, or they 
may be found still feeding close beside the existing 
glaciers of arctic lands. To mention only the 



146 THE OLDEST BUTTERFLY 

most conspicuous instances which we have, we 
would recall the two butterflies before referred to, 
as now found exclusively upon the barren summits 
of the White Mountains, and at no other point in 
or near New England. 

The most striking feature in their occurrence is 
the fact that the genera into which these two but- 
terflies fall have an altogether special interest of 
great significance in this connection ; for they are 
exclusively or very largely arctic, and there are 
but three other such genera known in the whole 
butterfly world. These others are Erebia, of 
which there are some examples in subarctic Amer- 
ica and in the Rocky Mountains ; Agriades, which 
hardly comes nearer to us than Labrador, and is 
found again in the high mountains of the western 
half of our continent ; and Eurymus, which is less 
exclusively arctic than the others, having represent- 
atives also over almost the entire globe, excepting 
in tropical countries, and of which we have three 
species in New England, one of them subarctic. 
Oeneis, the genus to which one of our Mt. Wash- 
ington forms belongs, occurs elsewhere only in 
high mountain regions, and, with but one or two 
exceptions, beyond forest limits, whether toward 
the pole or the zenith. Several species occur 



INHABITANTS OF NEW ENGLAND 147 

among the mountains of our west, one is found in 
the Alps of Switzerland, and one in the Hima- 
layas. Brenthis, however, the other White Moun- 
tain genus, while occurring as far north as butter- 
flies are known (two or three species having been 
found by the very shores of the Arctic Ocean, in 
Greenland and Grinnell Land), is represented 
more largely by species occurring in the temperate 
zone, and we have in New England itself two of 
such species. In keeping with this distribution of 
these genera, the White Mountain Oeneis is not 
only confined to the barren summits of the range, 
but even, as we have found, to the higher parts of 
this region, although its food-plant, Carex, is 
found everywhere above the forest. The White 
Mountain Brenthis, on the other hand, very rarely 
occurs in the same district with Oeneis, being 
almost wholly confined to the lower half of the 
barren region. Its food-plant, though not known, 
is presumed to be violets, which are found in 
scanty numbers in the strictly alpine district, a sin- 
gle species being found in favorable spots ; but they 
are sufficiently abundant in the subalpine zone. 

These two butterflies, then, may be looked upon 
as the oldest inhabitants of New England, which 
followed the retreating ice-sheet in its progress 



148 THE OLDEST BUTTERFLY 

northward, and whose brethren, thought by some 
to be even forms of the same species, still cling to 
the borders of the ice region of the north. They 
were the first of their tribe to fly over the barren 
fields of New England when the earliest verdure 
began to follow the withdrawing ice, and, moving 
with it step by step, were at last, some of them, 
beguiled by the local glaciers which remained in 
the White Mountain region long after the main 
glacial sheet had left these moimtains far in its 
rear, and until connection with the main body was 
finally cut off. As one of our writers, Grote, has 
expressed it : — 

" Return became at length impossible. They ad- 
vanced behind the deceiving local glaciers step by step, 
up the mountain side, pushed up from below by the 
warm climate, which to them was uncongenial, until 
they reached the mountain peak, now bare of snow in 
the short summer. Here, blown sidewise by the wind, 
they patiently cling to the rocks ; or in clear weather, 
on weak and careful wing, they fly from flower of stem- 
less mountain-pink to blue-berry, swaying from their 
narrow tenure of the land. Drawn into the currents of 
air that sweep the mountain's side, they are forced 
downwards, to be parched in the hot valleys below. Yet 
they maintain themselves ; they are fighting it out on 
that line." 



INHABITANTS OF NEW ENGLAND 149 

It may here be remarked that botanists have not 
yet distinguished two zones of life above the trees 
in our White Mountains, but only between those 
plants that are found exclusively in that region or 
in the high north, and those which, while found 
there in greatest abmidance, are also found decid- 
edly out of it. But my own casual observation of 
the comparative abundance of certain flowers over 
the districts I have distinguished as upper alpine 
and lower alpine leads me to beheve that a careful 
survey of the field would bring one to the same 
conclusion as I have drawn in the case of the but- 
terflies. Moreover, Agassiz noted many years ago 
certain distinctions, as the following extract from 
his " Lake Superior " shows : — 

" Above this level the mountain is naked, and many 
fine plants make their appearance which remind us of 
the flora of Greenland, and many of which grow on the 
northern shores of Lake Superior, such as Arenaria 
groenlandica, Vaccinium caespitosum, uHginosum, etc. 
The summit of the mountain, at the height of six 
thousand two hundred and eighty feet, produces several 
plants which have no representatives south of Labrador. 
Such are Andromeda [Cassiope J hypnoides, Saxif raga riv- 
ularis, Rhododendron lapponicum, Diapensia lapponica." 

The phenogamous vegetation of the whole dis- 



150 THE OLDEST BUTTERFLY 

trict is indeed pretty well known, but it would be 
well to prepare full catalogues of the plants found 
in every distinct centre of alpine vegetation, witb 
tbeir comparative abundance at each place. Thus 
in the immediate vicinity of Mt. Washington we 
slioidd have separate comparative lists of plants 
of the elevated plateaus, of the borders of the 
Lakes of the Clouds, the base of the southerly 
cliff of Mt. Monroe, the boggy area above the 
Fall of the Thousand Streams, the neighborhood of 
the snow-field in Tuckerman's Eavine, the Alpine 
Garden, etc., with special notes upon the heights 
at which they are found as nearly exact as possi- 
ble. The study, too, of the other insects of this 
region is just as instructive as is that of the but- 
terflies or the plants. Thus among the moths of 
the genus Agrotis alone, Mr. Grote finds no less 
than three species, imperita, islandica, and carnea, 
which occur, besides on these lofty smnmits, only 
in Labrador and in Lapland or Iceland, while a 
considerable number of other moths and of Cole- 
optera are also known, inhabitants otherwise only 
of the high north. 

It will naturally be asked how it is possible that 
insects, and especially such delicate organisms as 
butterflies, can maintain themselves in such a bleak 



INHABITANTS OF NEW ENGLAND 151 

and inhospitable region as the summit of the 
White Mountains, where a Greenlander would find 
it impossible to live in comfort, inasmuch as he 
would be exposed not merely to the cold to which 
he is no stranger, but to the fiercest and most bit- 
ing winds, with an amount of humidity accom- 
panying them which would seem to be almost fatal 
to existence. In the case of our two butterflies it 
is tolerably certain that both of them pass the 
winter in the caterpillar stage, concealed in cre- 
vices of rocks beneath the mantle of snow, so that 
they are free from the sweeping wind, and have 
nothing but the rigors of the extremely long and 
cold winter to encounter. For protection during 
the brief existence of the butterfly life itself, there 
is a very plain provision on the part of nature in 
the protective colors of the wings. Especially is 
this the case with the Oeneis which, on alighting 
(which it ordinarily does on the bare gray rocks), 
invariably closes its wings back to back and settles 
upon one side as if reclining, the point of the wings 
away from the wind, where it clings to the rough- 
nesses of the rocks, and is seldom blown from its 
foothold. In this position the peculiar gray mot- 
tling of the under surface of the exposed portions 
of the wings so closely resembles the gray rocks 



152 THE OLDEST BUTTERFLY 

themselves, flecked witli minute brown and yellow- 
green licliens, tliat it is almost impossible to dis- 
cover one in its resting-place unless one has seen 
it alight. The resemblance is of a very marked 
character, and is unquestionably a gTeat means of 
protection. 

With regard to the Brenthis, we have here again 
a case of protective resemblance, though to a less 
extent ; for in the brilliant red and ashy checkered 
surface of the under wings, seen when the insect 
is at complete rest, we have contrasted colors fre- 
quently to be met with in the subalpiiie region in 
the latter part of the season when frosts have 
begun their work. But whether these protective 
resemblances are very necessary in a district where 
so few birds are found — hawks and snow-birds 
being almost the only persistent inhabitants — may 
perhaps be doubted, and the markings which we 
find on these insects may be only their ancestral 
inheritance, useful on the arctic barrens where 
birds are more various and plentiful. The Bren- 
this indeed seems really doomed to destruction. 
In the scanty numbers that one may find upon the 
mountain slopes, one sees the sign of their early 
departure ; for, in the many years that I have 
searched for them with special pains, I have never 





2 





OLDEST N. E. BUTTERFLIES 



INHABITANTS OF NEW ENGLAND 153 

seen more than a dozen or two specimens in a sin- 
gle day. Yet this is not at all true of Oeneis, and 
one hardly need to be anxious, in our generation 
at least, concerning its persistence, for the butter- 
fly is as abundant in its native haunts in proper 
season as almost any of the more favored inhabit- 
ants of lower levels. 



XYII. 

PROTECTIVE COLORING IN CATERPILLARS 

Considering mimicry in butterflies, we pointed 
out that it was not the least among the strange 
elements of that phenomenon that these extraordi- 
nary departures from a normal t3rpe should be 
gained purely for protection during the final days 
of a life, the earlier periods of which were subject 
to far greater dangers than the later. 

When, however, we come to examine the earlier 
stages themselves, though we shall find, as far as 
I am aware, no cases of parastatic mimicry, we do 
find that protective colors and markings, if not 
striking, are at least very general ; so general, 
indeed, that it might be questioned whether there 
exists a single one of the caterpillars of our butter- 
flies whose markings do not serve in some special 
way for its protection. 

Lubbock and Weismann have pointed out that 
caterpillars of Lepidoptera generally are green in 
their earliest stage. This, however, is not univer- 



PROTECTIVE COLORING 155 

sally true. Within the narrow scope of our own 
butterflies we have many instances in which this 
is not the case. The caterpillar of Oeneis macouni 
is even brilliantly striped ; those of several species 
of Papilioninae are almost black with a white 
saddle, and there are many others, like Eurymus 
and Basilarchia, which, though having certainly a 
green tinge, are nevertheless so obscured by other 
colors as to have a dusky effect which is at most 
only greenish. But the fact remaias that as a 
very general rule caterpillars of butterflies as well 
as of moths are when hatched nearly of the color 
of green leaves, and the various modifications which 
we find in the mature form of our different cater- 
pillars are gained during growth. 

This change of coloration and of markings which 
takes place during life is oftenest assumed after 
the second ecdysis, and, what is noteworthy, it is 
just then that the size of the caterpillar itself 
becomes materially enlarged. At the end of its 
second stage the little caterpillar is rarely more 
than two or three times as long as at birth, while 
the rate of growth subsequent to that is so great 
that in its mature condition it is ordinarily twenty 
or more times as long as at birth, and its bulk 
increases in a far greater ratio. The change of 



156 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

color and of markings has, therefore, direct 
relations to its visibility, and it is in this later 
period, even more than in the earlier, that we see 
how completely colors which are protective have 
established themselves. It is now that those ob- 
lique streaks upon the sides of the body are apt to 
show themselves, which, as Lubbock has pointed 
out, diverge from the general line of the body at 
much the same angle that the nervures of a leaf 
part from the midrib. Often the color of these 
streaks is graduated into the ground color in a 
manner which closely resembles the shadows of 
a raised vein upon a leaf, but it is only when we 
examine such objects in free nature that we see 
how perfect the deception becomes. 

As Lubbock has pointed out, longitudinal stripes 
are very common markings, and are most common 
and indeed almost universal upon such caterpillars 
as feed upon grasses and other elongated forms of 
vegetation, while they are comparatively rare upon 
such as feed upon broad-leaved plants. This is 
well exemplified by a comparison of the caterpillars 
of our Satyrinae and Pamphilini with those of 
most Vanessini, in the latter of which, though 
longitudinal markings are not unknown, they are 
almost invariably broken up or confused with 



IN CATERPILLARS 157 

mottlings so as to lose mucli of their force. The 
green color of all our Rhodocerini and Pierini also, 
notably of the Little Sulphur (Eurema lisa), which 
feed upon broad-leaved plants and lie exposed 
upon the surface beside the midrib or prominent 
vein, conceals them almost completely from view 
even when the eye is fastened upon them. The 
long and slender form of Anthocharis with its 
striking longitudinal stripes would seem to render 
it a conspicuous object, but if seen upon the lank 
vegetation upon which it grows beside the long 
drawn seed pods, it would hardly be noticed. 
Caterpillars like our Argynnids, which conceal 
themselves upon the ground, are almost black, and 
can hardly be distinguished excepting when in 
motion. Even the color of the huge caterpillar 
of the Tiger Swallow-tail (Jasoniades glaucus) is 
such an exact imitation of that of the leaf upon 
which it rests, whose sides it has so turned up that 
no profile view may be had of it, that it does not 
readily catch the eye. 

The few exceptions we have among our butter- 
fly caterpillars, where striking and conspicuous 
colors obtain, are perhaps not easily explained. In 
some, doubtless, the colors may be regarded as 
warning colors, indicating the unpalatable nature 



158 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

of the creature, as in the ease of the Monarch 
(Anosia plexippus). But there are others, such 
as the Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) 
and Harris's butterfly (Cinclidia harrisii), where 
we know no reason for holding such a view ; and 
it is a little perplexing when we come to examine 
the large, naked, and exposed caterpillars of our 
Papilioninae, as of the Blue Swallow-tail (Laertias 
philenor) for instance, its black body with pro- 
jecting orange points set off vividly against the 
deep green of the Aristolochia, or the gay bodies 
of Iphiclides and Papilio with their transverse 
stripes of brilliant orange, green, and black, — it 
is perplexing, I say, to assert that these are warn- 
ing colors given to show the inedibility of the 
caterpillar, possibly indicated also by the nauseous 
odor of the osmateria, when in two other of our 
own genera, Jasoniades and Euphoeades, with the 
same osmateria, we have protective colors of no 
mean importance. They may, however, be ex- 
plained, at least in part ; for the caterpillars of 
Laertias conceal themselves beneath the broad 
leaves of Aristolochia so as not readily to be 
found but for the marks of their presence in their 
droppings ; and although one finds it difficult 
to look upon the colors of the Black SwaUow-tail 



IN CATERPILLARS 159 

(Papilio polyxenes), the more striking of tlie other 
two mentioned, as in any sense protective, it is 
nevertheless true, as pointed out by Poulton with 
regard to the similarly colored species, the Swallow- 
tail of Europe (P. machaon), that the protection 
afforded by the coloring of these insects is " very 
real when the larva is on the plant, and can hardly 
be appreciated at all when the two are apart." 

Poulton, therefore, distinguishes between gen- 
eral protective mimicry, which, he says, is ''such 
an appearance in an organism that the artistic 
effect of its surroundings is sufficiently reproduced 
in it to prevent attention from being attracted 
when the one is seen in the midst of the other," 
m fact simply a general harmony with its sur- 
roundings ; and special protective mimicry, where 
protection is gained by the acquisition of a special 
appearance. Slater has urged that gaily colored 
protected caterpillars feed upon poisonous plants 
like Euphorbiaceae, Asclepiadaceae, Aristolochia, 
etc. ; perhaps experimentation might show how 
much value there is in this suggestion. 

One further point may be alluded to. It is 
well known that the caterpillars of many species 
of Lepidoptera are dichromatic in their later life, 
some of the forms being brown and others gTeen. 



160 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

This has nothing whatever to do with sex or with 
food, and Poulton argues that in these cases both 
colors are protective, and that the species (though 
in no way either dichromatic form) is advantaged, 
because when once discovered by an enemy others 
of the same color would then be more easily found 
by this enemy (a reason which would appeal to 
every field entomologist) ; so that while one form 
might suffer the species would be saved through 
the escape of the other. Weismann believes that 
this change has been brought about by natural 
selection, but Semper urges that selection " could 
not possibly effect any alteration in the pigment, 
but could only operate after such a change had 
actually occurred." Closely allied to this is the 
well-known fact that, in a number of our cater- 
pillars and particularly in those of the Papilionuiae, 
an entire change of color takes place just previous 
to pupation. The period of pupation is probably 
the most hazardous for an insect, as far as its 
active external foes are concerned, it being abso- 
lutely helpless in this period and iu a very sensitive 
state. The time required for the change is much 
gTcater in any one species than for ordinary ecdysis 
in the same species ; and whatever the purpose of 
the change iu coloration may be, it will hardly fail 



IN CATERPILLARS 161 

to be noticed that in general all vivid colors are 
subdued and entirely neutral tints assumed. 

There are many instances among other cater- 
pillars where most extraordinary resemblances are 
assumed, very probably protective in their nature. 
Indeed, in some of our own swallow-tails the mark- 
ings of the front part of the body may very likely 
serve to alarm a foe about to attack, as they are 
really of a very striking nature, especially when the 
creature assumes the attitude which it does when 
disturbed. We have, moreover, some caterpillars 
which possess features of a very surprising charac- 
ter, doubtless for the sake of protection; one of 
the commonest of which is the striking contrast 
between creamy white and black, or some other 
dark tint, which makes the creature resemble the 
vermiform dropping of a bird ! This is true of 
all our species of Basilarchia, of the Green Comma 
(Poly goniaf annus), and, especially in their middle 
stages, of several of the Papilioninae, such as the 
Green Clouded Swallow-tail (Euphoeades troilus) 
and the Giant Swallow-tail (Heraclides cresphon- 
tes). 

All these mimetic colors are of advantage only 
as against their vertebrate enemies. M'Lachlan 
has pointed out, what every observer must discover, 



162 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

tliat they give tlie insect no exemption whatever 
from the attack of ichneumons, — a fact which is 
perfectly in accord with our knowledge of the physi- 
ology of insect-vision. But as regards their more 
highly organized enemies, it may indeed be doubted 
whether there is a single one of our butterfly cater- 
pillars which is not protected by means of its color, 
either to prevent its being seen or to render it 
conspicuous. Indeed, we are inclined to say with 
Drummond that " mimicry is not an occasional or 
exceptional phenomenon, but an integral part of 
the economy of nature. It is not a chance relation 
between a few objects, but a system so widely 
authorized that probably the whole animal king- 
dom is more or less involved in it." 



XVIII. 

AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 

Fritz Muller, a naturalist who has done 
much by his researches in various fields to bring 
new evidence in support of Darwin's theory, as- 
tonished the entomological world some years ago 
with a long list of odors emitted by butterflies 
and moths. It had been known for a long time 
that certain butterflies had peculiar odors, but 
no one imagined the extent and variety of this 
peculiarity. And indeed this is not altogether 
strange, since the cases known up to the present 
time are largely drawn from tropical butterflies, 
and the odor is always lost after death, and in 
many cases is exceedingly faint and fleeting. The 
study of the apparatus through which the odors 
are emitted shows that three classes of organs are 
involved in their production, and the variation in 
intensity of odor in different creatures leads to 
the very reasonable belief that the identical organs 
found in an immense number of butterflies where 



164 AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 

we can perceive no odor are also scent-producers, 
even tliougli tlieir odors may be too ethereal for 
human senses. 

The odors produced by butterflies are very 
largely confined to the male sex, evidently for the 
delectation of their mates, and the organs through 
which they are produced may be divided into 
three classes : extensible glands, situated upon 
the abdomen ; tufts or pencils of hairs, found 
upon various parts of the body, even including 
the legs and wings ; and scales or scale-clusters, 
confined entirely to the wings. In the first class, 
that of extensible glands, we have the case of 
Anosia and its allies, the males of which can pro- 
trude from the terminal segment of the body 
a sac-like finger, bristhng with hairs, which upon 
withdrawal are closely compacted into a pencil. 
The odor emitted by this organ is said by Fritz 
MiiUer to be rather disagTceable when the pro- 
cesses are fully protruded, and as being rather 
faint in our species. I have never myself experi- 
mented with it. Similar organs are found in the 
allied Euploeinae, of some species of which de 
Mceville says : " The males . . . may often be 
observed patrolling a small aerial space, with the 
end of the abdomen curled under the body toward 



AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 165 

the thorax, and with the two beautiful yellow anal 
tufts of long hair distended to their fullest extent 
at right angles to the body." So, too, in the 
Heliconinae similar organs exist, and that in both 
sexes, and the odor is described as of a disgusting 
nature. The females of Melete and CaUidryas, 
genera of Pierinae, have similar organs in the 
female, possessing a peculiar odor, and the males 
of some species of Morphinae " are able to pro- 
trude from the end of the abdomen a pair of 
hemispherical bodies covered with short hairs 
which produce a very distinct odor." So, again, 
both sexes of a species of Didonis, one of the 
Nymphalinae, protrude from the dorsal side of 
the abdomen, between the fourth and fifth seg- 
ments, hemispherical protuberances which have 
a rather disagreeable and strong odor; and what 
is the more remarkable, in addition to this, the 
male of the same species has a second pair of 
similar protuberances, between the fifth and sixth 
segments, which are white and "emit an agreeable 
odor, comparable to that of heliotrope." 

With the second group, where the odors have 
their origin in tufts or pencils of hairs, the odors 
at once change in general from a disagreeable to 
a pleasant nature. In the Ithomyini, Fritz Miil- 



166 AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 

ler found a pencil or tuft of long hairs near tlie 
front margin of the Mud wings of the males which 
emits a distinct and agreeable vanilla-hke odor. 
The same organs with the same odor are occasion- 
ally found in some of the females, but the organs 
are never so large nor the odor so strong. In 
Prepona, one of the Nymphalinae, there is a tuft 
of black hairs on the hind wings of the. males 
which possesses a distinct odor. The same odor 
of vanilla comes, according to Wood-Mason, from 
the scent-fans of a species of Thaumantis, a genus 
of Morphinae, where they are situated in various 
positions upon the upper surface of the hind 
wings near the base. Similar tufts of hairs on 
the wings of the males of a species of CatopsiHa 
are said by the same writer to smell like jasmine ; 
while Miiller reports that in some of the higher 
Hesperini he perceived a very faint odor issuing 
from certain pencils of haks which are foimd on 
the hind tibiae of the males when they were ex- 
panding, the pencil being ordinarily hidden in a 
furrow on the ventral side of the body between 
the thorax and abdomen. So, too, he found in 
the males of a species of Melete, one of the Pi- 
erinae, already referred to, a pencil of hairs not 
retractile, protruding from the ventral side of the 



AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 167 

tip of the abdomen, wMcli emits " a rather strong 
odor," but whether agreeable or not he does not 
state. In addition to these, there are not a few 
instances known in which the statement regarding 
the source of the odor is somewhat vague, a gland 
being referred to when the only specification of 
such an organ is a collection of scales of peculiar 
character. On this account, and because in cer- 
tain instances the odor of such collections of scales 
is plainly due to the scales themselves and not to 
the pouch in which or the surface upon which 
they may occur, I prefer to class all these in- 
stances in the third group. 

This includes odors emitted by scales or clus- 
ters of scales. In aU instances, so far as known, 
these are confined to the male sex, the scales 
themselves or the patches being similarly re- 
stricted. Thus we find a species of Antirrhea, 
one of the Satyrinae, in which, according to Fritz 
Miiller, the males emit a strong odor from a col- 
lection of scales on the hind wings at the anterior 
base of the upper surface, covered by the fore 
wings and specially protected by a curving mane 
of pale buff hairs. In a genus of Morphmae, 
Stichophthalma, Wood-Mason perceived a pleas- 
ant odor emitted by a patch of modified scales 



168 AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 

and an erectile wMsp of hairs on the hind wings 
of the male. This, he says, comes from a fluid 
secreted by these scales or hairs, the only instance 
in which such a secretion has been noted ; but 
this pleasant odor, he adds, is so faint " as barely 
to be perceptible in the presence of a much 
stronger odor (resembling that of sable fresh 
from the furrier's shop) which is common to the 
two sexes," but which is not localized. In the 
neighboring group of Brassolinae, spots of pe- 
culiar scales are very often present on the hind 
wings, and Miiller observed that very distinct 
odors were emitted from these spots in several 
different genera, particularly in Dasyophthalma. 
So, too, he noted that a rather strong odor was 
given off from a species of Ageronia, one of the 
Nymphalinae, by two large brown spots situated 
between the wings where they oppose each other, 
though in other allied species of the same genus 
neither the odor nor the patch could be detected. 
A most curious instance is that of the species of 
Didonis, already mentioned, where abdominal 
glands occur in both sexes and even a second pair 
in the male, one with agreeable and one with 
disagreeable odor, a butterfly which is still further 
beperfumed, since Miiller was able to detect a 



AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 169 

musk-like odor produced by a black spot of scales 
near the base of tlie under side of the front wings. 
Another member of tbe same sub-family, the 
European Charaxes, is said by Girard to have 
a strong odor of musk, especially just after its 
eclosion, though he does not state in which sex it 
arises, or from what point of the body it origi- 
nates. In our own fauna we have a striking in- 
stance of this odor in the scent emitted by the 
scales clustered along the median nervules of the 
upper surface of the fore wing in the Mountain 
Silver-spot (Argynnis atlantis), scales which have 
a distinct odor of sandalwood, so strong that 
it is hardly possible to handle living specimens 
without recognizing it, and which I have known 
to be retained for many weeks after death, when 
the insect had been inclosed at capture in a paper 
envelope. This is the more remarkable because 
I have never detected the same or any odor in the 
allied species of Argynnis of New England, which 
nevertheless possess precisely the same scales and 
in the same position. Finally, in this highest 
family of butterflies, we have the instance of the 
Monarch (Anosia plexippus) ; the scales found 
in the little pouch upon the upper surface of the 
hind wings next the lower median nervule emit 



170 AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 

a slightly honeyed odor over and above the carroty 
smell which all the scales possess. 

In the next family, the little discal spot of 
scales upon the upper surface of the fore wing of 
the males of a large number of Theclini is well 
known, but it has never been noted by any one 
except Fritz Miiller that this patch of scales oc- 
casionally has an odor of greater or less distinct- 
ness. In the allied group of Lycaenini, the males 
of which possess scales of peculiar battledore form 
scattered over the upper surface of the wings, 
we find in one of our own species, the Spring 
Azure (Cyaniris pseudargiolus), an exceedingly 
delicate odor, which I can only describe as that 
of newly stirred earth in the spring or of crushed 
violet stems. 

Among the Pierinae, Miiller mentions several 
instances of odoriferous scales, wliich in some 
instances are collected into patches and in others 
not. Thus in Leptalis he finds on the portions of 
the front and hind wings which conceal each other 
a patch of scales emitting an odor of greater or 
less strength according to the species ; an odor, he 
remarks, which is " disagreeable to human noses." 
So, too, in the males of several species of CaUi- 
dryas, he discovered in the patch of scales in the 



AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 171 

same position on the hind wings a musk-like odor 
of varying degrees of strength according to the 
species. He adds that our own Cloudless Sulphur 
(Callidryas eubule) emits a faint musk-like odor, 
but this has been more carefully and indepen- 
dently determined by Miss Murtfeldt of Missouri 
as a slight violet odor; she was unable, however, 
to locate the spot from which the odor originated. 
Again, according to Miiller, a " very delicious 
perfume" is produced on the upper side of the 
wing of the male of the species of Melete already 
referred to, a perfume which is rather faint, but 
which may be rendered distinct by keeping the 
animal alive with the wings closed, when the odor 
may be perceived on opening them. Another 
instance in which two closely alKed species may 
vary in regard to their odor is found in our 
species of Pieris, the males of the Cabbage butter- 
fly (Pieris rapae) being only faintly odorous, 
while those of the Gray-veined White (P. olera- 
cea) have a more distinct but still faint odor of 
syringa blossoms ; so, too, the Green-veined White 
(P. napi) of Europe is said by different writers, 
de Selys Longchamps, Perkins, Weismann, to 
have the odor of thyme, verbena, orange, or bal- 
sam. The only one of our Papihoninae in which 



172 AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 

there are any such, scales peculiar to the male sex 
is Laertias, which has the inner margin of the 
hind wings reflected, conceahng scales of a pecu- 
liar character ; I have never taken a living male, 
and so have been unable to detect any odor there, 
but Edwards speaks of the butterfly as having 
a strong and disagreeable smell which probably 
originates here ; for Miiller has found in other 
allied swallow-tails odors which arise from exactly 
this source, the reflected margin being expanded, 
he says, when the wings are moved strongly in 
a forward direction, and allowing the odor to 
escape. Indeed, Miiller asserts that in one spe- 
cies there appear to be " two sets of males, emit- 
ting equally strong but quite different odors," a 
case which would be very similar to that of dimor- 
phism in color or markings, — diosmism we might 
call it. The odors which he discovered from the 
different patches of this sort were in some cases 
agreeable and in some disagreeable. 

According to Aurivillius, both male and female 
of Oeneis noma of Europe have a musky odor, 
and as he can discover no odor in either sex of 
the Large Cabbage White (Mancipiimi brassicae), 
a species in which the male possesses large andro- 
conia, he looks askant at the so-called scent scales 



AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 173 

described by Fritz Miiller. But if tbe species of 
Oeneis named possesses this odor in both sexes, it 
is probable that it does not arise from the scent 
scales but from some other source, probably from 
some abdominal excretory organ, such as Miiller 
has described in many other butterflies. I have 
been unable to detect any odor in three other spe- 
cies of Oeneis examined alive by me, and they, like 
Mancipium brassicae, are merely some of many 
instances in which our senses cannot perceive an 
odor presumably emitted. Lelievre, again, found 
that both sexes of Thais polyxena had on eclosion, 
when handled, an odor similar to that of its food 
plant Aristolochia, the odor arising from a fluid 
which was left upon the hand that had seized the 
insect. The European Swallow-tail (Papilio ma- 
chaon) is also said to sometimes exhale a distinct 
odor of fennel, upon which the larva feeds. All 
these, however, are plainly means of defense, if 
they have any purpose, and have no relation to the 
odors of scent scales. Nor does it appear that any 
organs for their production have been noted. 

The statement by Miiller that the fragrant odors 
emitted by butterflies are in some cases produced 
by peculiar scales found in the male sex, and which 
he terms scent scales, was received with a great 



174 AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 

deal of incredulity, and rightly, because the wing 
of an insect was looked upon, at least after the 
butterfly had flown awhile, as an almost com- 
pletely dead organ. But the fact that any one may 
experiment with our own butterflies, and in several 
cases prove to himself the exact location of an 
odor, removes in the first instance any possible 
doubt as to its origin ; and Weismann, in defend- 
ing Miiller, has clearly shown that there is a liv- 
ing tissue in the wings of butterflies which would 
allow of the production of an odor through local 
active scent glands. 

It seems, therefore, to be clearly proved that 
very many butterflies emit odors either of an 
agreeable or of a disagreeable nature, and that 
those which are pleasing to us are in large measure 
confined to the male sex, and are emitted through 
microscopic canals which course through micro- 
scopic scales to microscopic glands at their base 
within the wing membranes. Now it is quite 
plain that, since these insects emit odors, they 
must also be able to perceive them. That this 
is the case has always been known to be true of 
moths, since the males of certain species, especially 
among the Bombycidae, will of an evening enter in 
great numbers an open room within which a female 



AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 175 

of the same kind has been disclosed from its cocoon 
entirely out of sight of and often at a great dis- 
tance from her visitors. It is plain that in in- 
stances of this sort, known to every entomologist 
and too nmnerous to mention, the sense of smell 
must be the sole directing agent ; and since in 
many of these instances no odor is perceptible to 
hmnan sense, it is plain that there may be many 
odors emitted which, though imperceptible to us, 
may be all-sufficient for them. This abundantly 
explains the many cases of organs from which 
we can perceive no odor, when in allied insects 
identical organs are perceptibly fragrant. 

Moreover, we have in certain specific structures 
in the enlarged antennal club of butterflies what 
are plainly sense-organs suppKed with nerve-end- 
ings ; and inasmuch as there is no structure found 
in them which could subserve the purpose of hear- 
ing, or indeed of any other of the senses known to 
us excepting that of smell, it is the behef of physi- 
ologists that here are situated the organs of smell 
in butterflies. The under surface of the antennae 
of butterflies is invariably naked to a greater or 
less degree, and, more plainly in some joints than 
in others, little dimples can be readily seen. It 
is in these little pits that are situated the organs of 



176 AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 

smell ; each consists of a sac-like cavity, the open- 
ing into wMcli is often protected by cuticular pro- 
cesses, and at the bottom of which in the hypoderm 
is situated a fusiform body with a delicate conical 
ending extended free into the centre of the sac, its 
other extremity being in direct continuation of a 
nervous thread. 

For myseK I am inclined to attribute to butter- 
flies, as to moths, an exceedingly delicate and high 
perception of odors. Any one observing their action 
with this in view will find numerous instances in 
which this sense certainly seems to come in play, 
particularly as it appears highly probable from re- 
cent researches that the sight of these creatures is 
far less distinct than was formerly supposed. The 
mere fact that the eggs of butterflies are invariably 
laid upon or in close proximity to the food plant of 
the caterpillar can be explained, as I have already 
suggested, only on the supposition that the crea- 
tures have the power of distinguishing such plants 
hy their odors. If one will watch a butterfly bent 
upon laying eggs as it flits in and out among the 
herbage, he cannot fail to perceive the brief visit 
it makes to plants which seem quite closely to re- 
semble the food plant of the caterpillar, and how 
quickly it settles upon the desired object, as if it 



I on 1 1 .! 



^1 







SCENT-SCALES 



AROMATIC BUTTERFLIES 177 

were recognized in an instant. More than this, 
how unerringly it discovers the plant it is in search 
of, even if hidden beneath a canopy of entangled 
obstacles. It acts in every way as if it were scent- 
ing out the object of its quest. 

So, too, the very high development of scent 
scales of varied patterns and character among but- 
terflies indicates a direct sexual use, which is the 
more easily understood when we consider that the 
greater variety and brilliancy of the colors of but- 
terflies as contrasted with moths has, in all proba- 
bility, no sexual significance whatever. Brilliant 
masculine colors may possibly have arisen in birds 
through sexual selection, but such an origin is im- 
possible in butterflies ; since, therefore, the males 
cannot be attractive to their mates by seductive 
colors, they resort to odors, and vie with each other 
in the production of sweet-smelling garments. 



XIX. 

THE PROCESSION OF THE SEASONS 

No one can observe buttei*flies in most casual 
way without having forced upon him the constant 
fluctuation of forms that greet his eye. At one 
time he will be struck by the abundance of kinds 
and of individuals ; then by the small number he 
will meet, mostly of two or three sorts. One 
common kind he will fancy he has lost sight of, 
only to have crowds of them burst on him later in 
the season. He will look for the re-occurrence of 
others in vain. And each succeeding year he will 
note the same phenomena in the same order, varied 
only by the greater abundance or scarcity of one 
kind or another. 

This supplanting of one species by another is in 
wonderful adaptation to the parallel changes going 
on in the vegetable world, especially among the 
flowers. I do not know that any of our naturalists 
or artists have written of the harmony between the 
prevailing tints of a New England landscape at 



PROCESSION OF THE SEASONS 179 

different times of the year, and of the insect world 
at the same seasons. Our common butterflies, 
which nature has been at such pains to adorn, show 
a shifting panorama of form and color from early 
spring to the time of frost. First in the sombre 
leafless woods come the various dusky wings, brown 
and black, skipping softly in and out among the 
gray rocks and over the dry leaves and dark 
pools of melting snow, or sunning themselves on 
dry sticks athwart the sim. Hard upon these, 
in the time of early violets and hepaticas and fre- 
quenting the spots most loved by them, foUow 
the little blue butterflies, scarce larger than the 
flowers. Then, as spring fairly bursts upon us 
with its fresh and varied hues, come crowds 
of queenly swallow-tails, lustrous with metallic 
gleam, or striped and belted with gay colors; 
and the banded and spotted purples that court the 
quiet forest road and the brink of the mountain 
brook; the soft white butterflies, that look too 
pure for earth, less retiring than the last, float 
about our gardens, alas ! on sad intent ; while the 
brisk little tawny and black skippers everywhere 
bustle and whisk about. Summer, with its blaz- 
ing sun and diversified blossoms, brings us the 
hot-looking coppers, and all that dappled band of 



180 PROCESSION OF THE SEASONS 

fritillaries and angle-wings, blocked in red and 
black above, and often variegated by odd dashes 
and spots of burnished silver, or by peacock eyes 
beneath. How they crowd about the spreading 
thistle blossoms, or on the many-flowered umbels of 
the milkweed, and fan themselves with content at 
their sweet lot ! As autumn approaches and the 
leaves grow dull, the grain ripens in the meadow 
and the pastures parch with drought, then come 
the satyrs or meadow-browns, lazily dancing by the 
roadside and over the thickets which skirt the 
fields; in the time of goldenrods and yellow and 
blue asters the great throng of yellow and orange 
butterflies appear; some of them are with us 
throughout the season, companions of the buttercup, 
the dandelion, and the rudbeckia; but now they 
swarm, flitting busily in zigzag courses over upland 
pasture and lowland meadow, by marsh and brook, 
in field and fen, crowding around the open flowers, 
or dancing in pairs in mid-air. 



XX. 

THE WAYS OF BUTTERFLIES 

The butterfly is a daughter of high noon and of 
the sun. Eainy days see none astir. A few will 
venture out on a dull day, but it needs the full 
blaze of the sun to marshal all the hosts ; indeed, 
there are few butterflies abroad in New England 
before seven or eight o'clock of a summer's day, 
and long before nightfall, with closed wings, and 
antennae snugly packed between, they are quietly 
resting beneath some leaf or clinging to some 
grass-blade. The morning seems to be the favorite 
time for changes, at least with us, whether it be 
for depositing eggs, their hatching, the ecdyses of 
the caterpillar, or the assumption of the pupal and 
imago states. In the tropics, according to Distant, 
many species have a definite period of the day 
for their flight, and the esmeralda butterfly, by 
Wallace's statement, even prefers showery weather 
for its activities. In resting at night each species 
has its own peculiar haunts, from which it may be 



182 THE WAYS 

easily stirred. Driving one morning within an 
houi" after sunrise across the sandy plains of Nan- 
tucket, along a road fringed with a row of stunted 
pines some fifty feet from the track, a contmuous 
stream of Blue-eyed Graylings (Cercyonis alope) 
arose, stirred from the low tops of the bordering 
pines by the rumble of our wagon-wheels ; none 
were to be seen either before or behind us, but 
on either side they constantly arose as we reached 
them, and, wafted by the wind, sank drowsily to 
the earth. Just before nightfall, at the proper 
season, one may readily discover the American 
Copper (Heodes hypophlaeas) or the Clouded Sul- 
phur (Eurymus philodice), clinging head upward 
and with drooping wings to any common herbage ; 
or watching the Spring Azure (Cyaniris pseudar- 
giolus) as it rests on a bough may observe it, as a 
heavy cloud obscures the sun, di'op fluttering to 
the ground to alight upon a blade of grass in some 
concealed spot beneath the shrub it had left. Gosse 
states that in Jamaica the Heliconians (Apostra- 
phia charithonia) assemble in a swarm before sun- 
set and huddle together on the stem of a certain 
plant for the night; is it not possible, however, 
from what we now know of this butterfly, that 
these were simply males assembling about a chrys- 
alis of a female ? 



OF BUTTERFLIES 183 

But we are sending our friends to bed before 
ever they have busied themselves with the day ! 
Their first thought appears to be of honey, and 
off they go, probing every flower they meet, and 
spending the greater part of the time in this 
employment. 

Some butterflies are less greedy than others, and 
spend long hours in sunning themselves, resting 
upon the leaves of herbs or trees, or perhaps upon 
the ground, gently half opening and shutting their 
wings ; many kinds are of a lively and even pug- 
nacious disposition, and perch themselves upon the 
tip of a twig or on a stone or some such outlook, 
and dash at the first butterfly that passes, especially 
if it be one of their own species ; then the two 
advance and retreat, forward and backward, time 
and again, circle around each other with amazing 
celerity, all the while perchance mounting skyward, 
until suddenly they part, dash to the ground, and 
the now quiet pursuer again stations himseK on 
the very spot he quitted for the fray. But they 
are not always particular to choose one of their own 
kind for this combat. Toss your hat in the air, 
and almost any of our Angle-wings will dash at it 
and circle around it as it rises and falls ; and the 
little American Copper, one of our smallest butter- 



184 THE WAYS 

flies, will dart at every bulky grasshopper that 
shoots across its field of vision. 

Some butterflies are as fond of water, or even of 
ordure, as they are of the sugared sweets of flowers. 
Every one must have noticed at the brink of road- 
side pools left by a recent rain, how the yellow but- 
terflies will start up at one's approach, flutter about 
a few moments, and then settle down again to their 
repast. On favorable occasions, you may find them 
ranged by hundreds along the edge of a puddle, 
with wings erect, crowded as closely as they can 
be packed. The little azure butterflies congregate 
in the same way about moist spots in the roads 
through woods ; but as they choose less frequented 
places, this is not so common a sight. Our Tiger 
Swallow-tails throng about lilac-blossoms, and be- 
come so intoxicated that on one occasion a friend 
of mine caught sixty of them at once between his 
' two hands ; and Baron teUs the story of two kinds 
of swallow-tails in Madagascar which evidently 
suck moisture from the gromid for the mere pleas- 
ure of the thing, ahghting by a stream of water 
and ejecting the water beliind as fast as they take 
it in in front ; on one occasion about a saltspoon 
of what was apparently pure water was caught from 
the abdominal flow in about five minutes ! 



OF BUTTERFLIES 185 

The butterflies I have mentioned show an appar- 
ent fondness for each other's company, apart from 
the attractions of the flowers or the muddy road ; 
indeed, there are very few butterflies which, at 
the time of their greatest abundance, do not show 
a tendency to congregate. The Monarch or Milk- 
weed butterfly (Anosia plexippus), for example, 
may be seen quite by himself, sailing majestically 
over the fields, until late in the season, when, hav- 
ing multiplied to excess, vast swarms are found 
together ; together they mount in the air to lofty 
heights, as no other butterfly appears to do, and 
play about in ceaseless gyi-ations ; and sometimes 
they crowd so thickly upon a tree or bush, as by 
their color to change its whole appearance ; occa- 
sionally we hear of the migrations of butterflies in 
swarms, but they are of rare occurrence, and have 
mostly been observed in the tropics. Mr. W. 
Edwards, however, relates how, from the top of 
Pegan Hill, in Natick, Massachusetts, he saw such a 
moving swarm flying steadily for hours in a single 
direction. They passed too high for recognition, 
although, by his description of their size and their 
mode of flight, it was probably the same butterfly 
which we have just mentioned. 

The movements of butterflies on the wing are 



186 WAYS OF BUTTERFLIES 

as different as the fliglits of birds, and just as an 
ornithologist may distinguish many birds by their 
mode of flight when their form and colors are in- 
distinguishable, so the observant entomologist may 
often determine a butterfly from a considerable 
distance. In the case of the entomologist, how- 
ever, the decision is more difficult, since there are 
such rapid replacements of one species by another 
throughout the summer that direct comparison of 
the flight of similar species is often impossible. 



XXI. 

BUTTERFLIES AT NIGHT AND AT SEA 

Butterflies are creatures of the land and of 
the day. No aquatic stage is known, or one that 
is aquatic in any stage of its existence. They love 
the sun and warmth, being essentially tropical ani- 
mals, every one of the larger groups decreasing in 
representatives in passing from the tropics towards 
the poles. They rarely undergo their transforma- 
tions other than above the ground, and mostly in 
midsummer. They fly by day, and generally by 
brightest day and in clearest weather. Yet there 
are some groups which love the forest gloom, and 
a few which, in tropical countries, favor the twi- 
light. There are a few, too, which venture to 
make their homes in the frigid zones, and on high 
and bleak mountain summits. There are, how- 
ever, exceptions to nearly every general rule, and 
a few of them may be related here. 

About fifteen years ago, I was spending the 
summer on the island of Nantucket. The under- 



188 BUTTERFLIES AT NIGHT 

keeper of tlie powerful flasli light at Sankaty Head 
brought me one day a tin box full of "moths" 
which had been fluttering around his lantern in 
gTeat swarms the night previous. On opening it, 
I discovered a dozen living specimens of the Comp- 
ton Tortoise (Eugonia j. -album). Hundreds of 
them had flown into the lantern the preceding 
night, and had given him a great deal of trouble. 
This is the first instance, so far as I can learn, in 
which butterflies have been known to fly by night, 
and it was the more surprising because this but- 
terfly had never before and has never since been 
found by me upon the island of Nantucket. Nor 
do I think there are enough plants there upon 
which its caterpillars would be hkely to feed to 
support any considerable brood. Since then, Miss 
Murtfeldt of Missouri has stated that after ten 
o'clock one August evening a specimen of Chlo- 
rippe celtis entered the open window of her sitting- 
room, attracted by the light, and was captured in a 
butterfly net. Another specimen was taken ear- 
lier in the evening, but after the lamps were lighted. 
A hackberry-tree, Celtis, on which the larva feeds, 
was near the window. An instance still more 
nearly approaching our first is stated to have been 
mentioned at a meeting of the Brooklyn Entomo- 



AND AT SEA 189 

logical Society in October, 1885 ; Dr. C. Hart 
Merriam was quoted as having mentioned that 
a light-house keeper on Lake Ontario had been 
greatly annoyed by the large swarms of the Mon- 
arch (Anosia plexippus) that flew against it and 
obscured the light. These are the only instances 
that I have been able to find, either in this coun- 
try or elsewhere, of the attraction of butterflies 
to ordinary light; but since the introduction of 
electric lights into our cities, entomologists have 
made use of them for the capture of insects, many 
nocturnal animals being attracted from aU the 
surrounding country by the brilliancy of the light, 
and among them, according to Mr. Henry Edwards 
and others, several species of butterflies. Most of 
them, like the preceding, were members of the 
highest family, Nymphalidae, viz., Anosia plexip- 
pus, Vanessa atalanta, Y. cardui, V. huntera, and 
Euvanessa antiopa; and, besides these, Cyaniris 
pseudargiolus and Euphoeades troilus. As all 
these instances, excepting that mentioned by Miss 
Murtfeldt, were cases of exceptional brilliancy and 
magnitude in the light, it is hardly to be presumed 
that we shall change our opinion that butterflies, 
as a rule, are insects of the day, although, as is 
well known, there are certain groups, especially of 



190 BUTTERFLIES AT NIGHT 

tlie Satyrinae, wMch in the tropics are accustomed 
to fly by twilight and even in the rain. 

My attention was early called to the occurrence 
of butterflies far out at sea by seeing, on my first 
natural history expedition nearly forty years ago, 
a specimen of the Mourning Cloak (Euvanessa 
antiopa), which visited our vessel on the 26th of 
February, while off the coast of North Carolina 
and some twenty or thirty miles from land, mak- 
ing us a short and flighty visit. One of the most 
remarkable instances, however, is that related by 
Darwin in his "Naturalist's Voyage around the 
World"; — 

"One evening [he says], when we were about ten 
miles from the Bay of San Bias [northern Patagonia], 
vast numbers of butterflies, in bands or flocks of count- 
less myriads, extended as far as the eye could range. 
Even by the aid of a telescope it was not possible to see 
a space free from butterflies. The seamen cried out 
* It was snowing butterflies,' and such in fact was the 
appearance. More species than one were present, but 
the main part belonged to a kind very similar to, but 
not identical with, the common EngHsh Colias edusa. 
Some moths and Hymenoptera accompanied the butter- 
flies ; and a fine beetle (Calosoma) flew on board. . . . 
The day had been fine and calm, and the one previous 
to it equally so, with light and variable airs. Hence 



AND AT SEA 191 

we cannot suppose that the insects were blown off the 
land, but we must conclude that they voluntarily took 
flight." 

Observers in India and other tropical regions 
have noticed on many occasions vast swarms of 
Pierinae moving in a line along the sea coast, and 
occasionally such swarms have been seen in similar 
situations in temperate regions ; thus Dr. Schulte 
relates that in a dead calm off Nordeney in the 
Baltic Sea, he steamed for three hours and a dis- 
tance of thirty miles through a continuous flock of 
the Cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapae) from ten to 
thirty miles from the main land and only five miles 
less than that from the nearest island ; afterward 
the shore was found strewn wdth. their dead bodies. 
And on our own side of the ocean we have a curi- 
ous instance related of the Little Sulphur (Eurema 
lisa) by Mr. J. M. Jones, who states that early 
one October morning several persons living on the 
northern side of the main island of Bermuda per- 
ceived what they thought to be a cloud coming 
from the northwest, which turned out to be " an 
immense concourse of small yellow butterflies, 
which flitted about all the open grassy patches and 
cultivated grounds in a lazy manner, as if fatigued 
after their long voyage over the deep," and fisher- 



192 BUTTERFLIES AT NIGHT 

men out that morning stated that their boats were 
literally covered with these butterflies. Other 
instances are recorded by Caldcleugh and Corne- 
lius. I have elsewhere recorded ^ the tendency of 
the Monarch (Anosia plexippus) to swarm along 
the water edge as if preparing for a great flight, 
and also the fact that this butterfly must have 
flown vast distances over the Pacific Ocean to have 
tenanted the scattered islands where it is now 
found. Also that it was seen by one naturalist 
in the south Pacific five hundred miles from the 
nearest island, and on the Atlantic Ocean " hun- 
dreds of miles from land." There is further a 
single record of the occurrence of Pieris rapae on 
one of the transatlantic steamers, when more than 
a thousand miles from land. This last might 
perhaps be accounted for on the supposition that 
the insect had emerged from a chrysalis on board, 
which had matured during the passage. But a 
still more striking instance of the occurrence of 
Lepidoptera far out at sea, on account of the num- 
ber of species concerned, is given in " Science," 
where Mr. Lucas records that while in latitude 
25° south and a thousand miles from the nearest 
portion of the coast of Brazil, his party 

1 See The Life of a Butterfly. New York, 1893. 



AND AT SEA 193 

"encountered several light squalls of wind and rain, 
during one of which two butterflies were driven past. 
The weather continued squally all night and for part of 
the next day, the wind coming from the westward. 
The following morning it was found that quite a num- 
ber of Lepidoptera had been blown on board, and 
ensconced themselves in various places sheltered from 
the wind. They were mostly, if not wholly, nocturnal 
species of small size, although one large hawk-moth was 
among them. About twelve or fifteen specimens, repre- 
senting nearly as many species, were captured, and 
others seen ; so that not less than twenty or thirty indi- 
viduals must have reached our ship." 

This number of specimens at so great a distance 
is certainly very remarkable and shows that the 
occurrence of butterflies at sea must not be looked 
upon as excessively rare, and explains without 
doubt one means by which the natural distribution 
of butterflies from one region to another may take 
place. 



xxn. 

SOME SINGULAR THINGS ABOUT CATERPILLARS 

Some one has said tliat it is the unexpected that 
always happens. So, to one who may be tolerably 
familiar with the structure of caterpillars, some 
new and unexpected feature often presents itself 
and will then appear in the same or in some modi- 
fied form through a long series of different species. 
Or the arrangement or disposition of parts with 
which he is perfectly familiar may suddenly be 
found to follow certain laws which he can formu- 
late but not explain, and which he had before 
overlooked. 

One of the most fundamental facts in the struc- 
ture of caterpillars, as of all arthropods, is the 
repetition of similar parts along the several rings 
of which the body is composed. But there are in 
caterpillars, at least, two disturbing elements which 
modify this law ; one, considering that the meta- 
morphoses of insects are conceded to be an acquired 
characteristic, is readily explained, and that is the 



ABOUT CATERPILLARS 195 

difference between the structures found on the 
thoracic and the abdominal segments. Thus, on 
account of the development of the future wings, the 
spiracles of the second and third thoracic segments 
are omitted, and the legs found upon the thoracic 
and abdominal segments are very different in 
character, those of the abdominal segments being 
a temporary expedient for the long trailing abdo- 
men, while those of the thoracic segments are more 
highly developed. But these exceptions, which 
have a direct relation to the future needs of the 
animal, cannot explain certain other features which 
show similar differences. In general terms, the 
entire surface structure of the upper part of the 
animal is practically identical on the thoracic and 
abdominal segments, but there are certain differ- 
ences which appear, to which no explanation is 
readily given. 

For instance : By the transverse creases which 
simulate the incisures between the segments, each 
segment is ordinarily divided into two or more ' 
transverse sections. Now these sections, at least 
when there are more than one or two, invariably 
differ upon the thoracic and abdominal segments, 
the abdominal segments having a system of their 
own, distinct from that of the thoracic. The first 



196 SOME SINGULAR THINGS 

thoracic segment, indeed, is the subject of great 
specialization and differentiation, and often differs 
widely in its divisions, as also in the appendages 
it bears, from the other thoracic segments ; but 
this is not true, or is true in an extremely lim- 
ited sense, as regards the other thoracic segments, 
which to all practical purposes are identical in 
general appearance with the abdominal and would 
seem to have much the same office to fill. Yet, if 
we examine carefully the dermal appendages of 
these segments, we shall note some curious features 
distinguishing them from those of the abdominal 
segments. Thus, the spines, bristles, filaments, or 
other special developments of the skin, are ranged 
in most caterpillars of butterflies in longitudinal 
rows when they have any regular disposition what- 
ever. There may be one or two or more upon 
each segment in a single row ; all the spines of one 
row will be found at corresponding points of the 
different segments, either on the middle or back or 
front, as the case may be. Yet with scarcely an 
exception among the caterpillars of butterflies, 
those series which extend along the abdominal seg- 
ments will either stop altogether at the thoracic 
segments or slightly change their direction at this 
point, so that often we may readily distinguish the 



ABOUT CATERPILLARS 197 

thoracic from the abdominal segments without 
looking at those parts which characterize them 
distinctively, such as the legs or spiracles. Thus, 
even in the mere disposition of the spines along 
a caterpillar's back, the future separation of the 
thorax and abdomen is foreshadowed. This is 
wholly independent of the larger amount of space 
upon the thoracic tract due to the absence of spir- 
acles ; for, when the spines are well developed on 
the first thoracic segment, which bears an unusu- 
ally large spiracle, they are aligned with those of 
the other thoracic segments and not with those of 
the abdominal segments. 

This, like the absence of spiracles from the sec- 
ond and third thoracic segments, might be ex- 
plamed on the theory that the transformations of 
the insects are an acquired characteristic, a devel- 
opment backward from the imago. But this will 
not explain another peculiarity which one observes 
in the general arrangement of the spines and other 
dermal appendages on the back of caterpillars, a 
feature which is extremely common, though per- 
haps not universal, with all vermiform creatures. 
I refer to what might be called the polar or an- 
tithetic arrangement of these appendages, which 
shows itself in a multitude of ways. As a general 



198 SOME SINGULAR THINGS 

rule tlie hairs, spines, filaments, or what not, are 
highly developed upon the thoracic segments, some- 
times increasingly so from the hindmost forward, the 
series culminating in lofty bristles or long append- 
ages upon the first thoracic segment. When this 
occurs, it is an almost invariable rule that a simi- 
lar but reversed arrangement and extension of the 
same class of appendages is found upon the termi- 
nal abdominal segments. Or if, as is frequently 
the case, the second or third thoracic segment is 
independently enlarged or its armature specially 
magnified, a similar but generally lesser develop- 
ment will be found to occur on one of the pre- 
terminal, though not the terminal, abdominal 
segments. A case in point is easily seen in the 
caterpillars of the genus Basilarchia, where the 
second and third thoracic segments are mammilate, 
and the second is crowned by a pair of stout, 
thorny tubercles. So, too, in a less degree, the 
seventh and eighth abdominal segments are slightly 
hunched and the corresponding tubercles at that 
point are noticeably enlarged, especially on the 
eighth segment. 

Many other sunilar features might be pointed 
out even among the limited series of our own cat- 
erpillars, as in all the young Papilioninae, and this 



ABOUT CATERPILLARS 199 

symmetrical polarity seems quite akin to what I 
once pointed out in the markings of the wings of 
butterflies, where corresponding ocelli are found 
upon the wings in antithetic positions as related to 
the vein structure beneath. Another instance of 
this polarity is seen in many of the caterpillars of 
the Satyrinae, in all of which the terminal segment 
ends in a fork of greater or less dimensions, in 
some instances taking the form of a long, pointed 
spine on either side, directed backward. When 
this is the case, and especially when it is most 
developed, the head also is crowned with a similar 
pair of pointed spines, and at rest the head is bent 
downward, so that these spines are thrown forward 
and the body ends at each extremity in a pair of 
long pointed spines. In this instance, at least, a 
purpose might be seen in such an armature, for it 
would appear as if the head bearing these long 
pointed spines would present a formidable appear- 
ance to some of its enemies, especially as it is able 
to present these organs at any point with great 
force and rapidity. If an enemy, alarmed at the 
front aspect, sought to assail the creature in the 
rear and were to find a similar pair of spines, it 
might well be conceived that he would presmne 
that these also could be used with equal offen- 



200 SOME SINGULAR THINGS 

siveness. Possibly this will explain many other 
cases. 

If we examine the arrangement of the spiracles 
upon the sides of the body, we shall find that the 
first thoracic and the last abdominal pair are in- 
variably much larger than the others, which are 
equal among themselves. The explanation of this 
is easy. The respiratory tube of each has to feed 
a very much larger field, the head and second tho- 
racic segments being fed by the tubes finding their 
outlet at the first thoracic segment, and several of 
the hinder abdominal segments of the body being 
equally dependent upon that of the eighth abdom- 
inal segment. The spiracle of the first thoracic 
segment is also situated on a higher level than the 
ordinary abdominal spiracle, and this is a conse- 
quence, in part at least, of the ordinarily smaller 
size of this segment ; yet it is also true in those 
forms in which the first thoracic segment is greatly 
enlarged. But what is curious is that in certain 
groups, the Lycaeninae in particular, and the 
Hesperidae to a less extent, the spiracle of the 
eighth abdominal segment is also situated at a con- 
siderably higher level than those of the other 
abdominal segments. This seems another instance 
of the polar arrangements of parts to which we 



ABOUT CATERPILLARS 201 

have alluded, but the explanation here is less obvi- 
ous, since it is a characteristic only of certain 
groups, and even here is not invariable ; for in the 
caterpillar of Feniseca, one of the Lycaeninae, the 
eighth abdominal spiracle is quite on a level with 
those in advance of it, just as it is in the bulk of 
butterfly caterpillars. The only reason for this 
elevated position in these cases would seem to be 
the particular form of the termination of the body, 
for in all the Lycaeninae, excepting Feniseca, and 
in all the Hesperidae in which this occurs, we find 
a flattened subonisciform shape, one which, indeed, 
throws the spiracles of all the abdominal segments 
a little higher relatively to the base of the body 
than is common among caterpillars in general. 

Besides the spines, filaments, bristles, etc., which 
form so noticeable and common a feature among 
butterfly caterpillars, there is another still more 
common and of a very similar nature ; that is, the 
short hairs or pile with which the body is provided, 
always supported by little papillae and distributed 
with great regularity, in which a transverse is 
more often seen than a longitudinal direction, 
sometimes dispersed indiscriminately all over the 
body. When a transverse arrangement obtains, it 
is usually related closely to the sections into which 



202 SOME SINGULAR THINGS 

the segments are divided. The use of this cloth- 
ing for the body is tolerably clear, since this pile 
must prevent the too rapid evaporation of the heat 
from the surface of the body ; for, although cater- 
pillars would be classed among the cold-blooded 
animals, they nevertheless have an internal heat 
above that of the surrounding atmosphere, which 
originates from the activities of the organs and 
the respiratory function, and which they would 
lose more rapidly but for this investing pile. 

But there are two other series of structures, always 
arranged in longitudinal rows, the use of which 
is wholly unknown. One of these is a imiversal 
characteristic of all caterpillars in their earliest 
stage, excepting probably the larger part of the 
highest family, and is common to the later stages 
of some of the lower families ; and that is the 
special papilla-mounted bristles, which are fur- 
nished with an expanded trumpet-mouthed tij) and 
are the ducts leading from glands at their base 
secreting a transparent fluid, which, after secretion, 
is borne in a little globule in the mouth of the 
trumpet, and sometimes kept in its place by a few 
microscopic bristles which surround its rim. That 
these have some protective fimction is highly prob- 
able, but what its nature may be, or how it acts, 



ABOUT CATERPILLARS 203 

is quite unknown. That they may be odoriferous 
seems highly improbable, for, though we can easily 
conceive that their insect enemies might perceive 
an odor from them, did such exist, which would be 
imperceptible to our senses (as we have the best 
reason for believing is the case with minute 
odoriferous organs of the perfect insect), yet we 
have not a particle of evidence to this effect, since 
in not a single instance have we been able to per- 
ceive any odor whatever from them. In the case 
of the organs of the mature forms, we conclude 
them to be odoriferous because in a few instances 
we can perceive an odor, and may fairly argue that 
entirely similar structures in others from which we 
can perceive no odor emit, nevertheless, some scent. 
Such evidence is absolutely wanting with regard to 
the present structures, and their use is therefore a 
subject for research. On experimenting, however, 
with some of the caterpillars of Pierinae which bear 
them when full grown, I have found the globule at 
the summit to be visibly increased when the crea- 
ture was disturbed. 

There is still another structure only recently 
made known, the purpose of which is obscure. 
These are the crateriform, chitinous annuli, which 
are ranged in longitudinal rows along the abdomi- 



204 SOME SINGULAR THINGS 

nal and sometimes the thoracic segments. They 
are found only in certain groups, but appear to be 
a universal characteristic of the earliest stage of the 
Lycaenidae, and have the appearance of spiracles, 
only they are ordinarily quite circular, while spir- 
acles are generally oval, and they present no open- 
ing in the centre, but onty, as far as I have been 
able to observe, a smiple pit of more delicate struc- 
ture than the chitinous annulus itself. They are 
found also in some Hesperidae in their earliest 
stage and sometimes also throughout Hf e. But for 
the tenuous structure of the pit in the centre, they 
would have all the appearance of suppressed spines, 
and, indeed, the central pit seems sometimes to be 
wanting, and we have simply a shining lenticle, 
similar to those which are so common in the Papi- 
lioninae. But whether they should be looked upon 
as structures on their way to some use, or as effete 
structures, degenerated spines so to say, we have no 
facts at present to show, and an explanation of 
their purpose is still to be sought. 

The discussion of these odd structures and curi- 
ous arrangements of parts in caterpillars may al- 
ready have been extended to too gTeat length, but I 
should like to draw a moment's attention to two 
other special points in the structure of caterpillars 



ABOUT CATERPILLARS 205 

which are still enigmas. One is the purpose or 
cause of the excessively constricted neck of the 
caterpillars of Hesperidae, a universal character- 
istic and one that is widely different from the fre- 
quent enlargement of this segment, as we find it in 
the Papilioninae, and to a much gTcater extent in 
the Lycaeninae. Another is the curious swollen 
vesicle which hangs like a bag, a blunt, conical, 
or transverse structure below the first thoracic seg- 
ment in advance of the legs. Various suggestions 
have been made with regard to this. It is a very 
common occurrence, perhaps not universal, with 
caterpillars, but very much more highly developed 
in some than in others. In those in which it is 
most highly developed, we have found no habit or 
peculiarity which would explain its purpose. It is 
ordinarily covered with gritty tubercles of a spe- 
cial structure, but as far as I have been able to see, 
contains no openings whatever. Many other singu- 
lar things about caterpillars needing explanation 
could be given, especially as regards their color- 
ing, but these will suffice to show that there is 
yet a wide field open, even among our commonest 
forms. 



XXIII. 

WHERE DID THE BUTTERFLIES COMMON TO THE 
OLD AND THE NEW WORLD ORIGINATE? 

If we bear in mind tlie continuity of land be- 
tween South America and North America, we sbaU 
not be surprised at finding, at least along the bor- 
ders, some butterflies which are found on both con- 
tinents ; but considering what wide oceans separate 
on either side the Old World and the New, and 
that their points of contiguity are in extreme north- 
ern latitudes, we might expect a greater absence 
of Old World forms in North America. Yet if we 
separate from the bulk of butterflies of this conti- 
nent those which are found south of the Canadian 
border and east of the Rocky Mountains, we shall 
find, out of the somewhat less than two hundred 
and fifty species occui'ring therein, not over a dozen 
which may be fairly considered identical with but- 
terflies found in the Old World, whether in Europe 
or in Asia. The identity of some of these, many 
wiiters have questioned ; about some there is no 



ORIGIN OF BUTTERFLIES 207 

doubt whatever, while there are others which 
approach in appearance those of the Old World 
so closely that naturalists are still in dispute con- 
cerning them. Let us consider a few of these 
separately, that we may gain some idea as to the 
nature of their peculiar distribution. 

In the first place there is one species, the Cab- 
bage butterfly (Pieris rapae), whose introduction 
into the eastern part of our continent is a mat- 
ter of history, and of whose immediate European 
origin there is therefore no question. There are 
three others, the Mourning Cloak (Euvanessa 
antiopa), the Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), and 
the Ked Admiral (V. atalanta), which do not vary 
in the slightest degree from the same species in the 
Old World, although some writers have at times 
thought that they could pick out the American and 
European forms when mixed in the same collection. 
Euvanessa antiopa is very widely distributed, cover- 
ing almost the entire North American continent 
excepting arctic and subarctic lands, and even here 
it extends within the latter to Alaska. In the Old 
World it has an equally wide distribution, being 
found over the whole of Europe excepting southern 
Spain, and over all of northern Asia. It is an 
insect of strong flight, and being found upon both 



208 ORIGIN OF BUTTERFLIES 

sides of Bering Strait, could unquestionably pass 
from one continent to tlie other at this point of 
their nearest approach. In which continent the 
species originated must be judged rather from the 
abundance and variety of its nearest allies on the 
one continent and on the other. In America there 
is but a single additional species of the genus 
occurring, and that so rare that I am not aware 
that more than one specimen has ever been found, 
occurring as it does in the mountains of Mexico. 
In the Old World several species occur in southern 
Asia, but in addition there is a very closely allied 
genus, Hamadryas, which occurs in Europe but 
not in America, and it is therefore in the highest 
degree probable that the origin of the species 
should be looked for in the Old World. As to 
the two species of Vanessa, we have shown in our 
New England Butterflies that the genus is divis- 
ible into two sections, into one of which cardui 
falls, into the other atalanta ; and that the imme- 
diate congeners of cardui are found altogether in 
the New World and those of atalanta in the Old. 
The distribution of these species in the New World 
is more restricted than that of E. antiopa, so that 
there is no probability of any recent transfer of 
forms between the two continents, and we are left 




BUTTERFLIES OF TWO WORLDS 



OF OLD AND NEW WORLD 209 

entirely to tlie consideration of their allies to judge 
in wliat part of the world they originated, and on 
this basis there can be no question whatever that 
cardui originated in America, and atalanta in the 
Old World. 

Two other species are in nearly the same cate- 
gory as the last as regards their distribution on this 
contment. These are the Spring Azure (Cyaniris 
pseudargiolus) and the American Copper (Heodes 
hypophlaeas), which many writers are inclined to 
consider identical with argiolus and phlaeas of the 
Old World. There can be no doubt of their exceed- 
ingly close affinity, nor, on the other hand, of the 
fact that whether species or variety, the forms ex- 
isting in the New World can be separated from 
those of the Old. With regard to Heodes, there 
is but a single species of the genus, in its restricted 
form, in either hemisphere. In each it extends 
from ocean to ocean, although not found in the 
high north, and inasmuch as the genera nearest to 
it are also represented by species in each hemi- 
sphere (more abundantly in the Old World than in 
the New), it is difficult to form any proper judg- 
ment concernmg its place of origin, though it would 
appear more probable on general gTounds that it 
originated in the Old World. The same general 



210 ORIGIN OF BUTTERFLIES 

statements are ti*ue to a large extent as regards tlie 
species of Cyaniris. There is a single form on 
each continent which extends across its entire width, 
but is not found in the high north. As in Heodes 
also, its immediate relatives are found in greater 
abundance in the Old World than in the New; 
but on the other hand the development of varietal 
forms within the species is so greatly in excess in 
America that we must conclude it probable that 
its life on this continent has been longer than on 
the Old. 

There remain only those species which occur 
within our district, but which belong more properly 
to high boreal regions. Among these we have 
first a sj)ecies of Oeneis (Oeneis jutta, the Arctic 
Satyr), which is unquestionably identical on the 
two continents. Its distribution on this continent 
is probably much more extensive than known, as 
it has been found at widely distributed localities. 
The genus to which it belongs is a characteristi- 
cally alpine and arctic group, and is so widely 
developed on both continents that here again it is 
extremely difficult to decide as to the probability 
of its origin. Often living close beside the ice, it 
has undoubtedly been a companion of the terminal 
moraine throughout the ages. One indication 



OF OLD AND NEW WORLD 211 

might at first lead us to suppose that the life of 
the genus may have been the longer in Europe. 
This is the fact that in the Alps of Switzerland 
there is a species very clearly distinct from any 
found in the north, while on our own high moun- 
tain-tops the White Mountain butterfly (O. semi- 
dea) is considered by many writers as identical 
with a species found in Labrador. But both are 
waifs left by the glacial epoch. Still, the bulk of 
genera to which the satyrids of Europe are referred 
belong to the section with ribbed eggs, in which 
Oeneis falls, while the contrary is true of the 
American forms. It would seem, therefore, as 
probable (though highly uncertain) that Oeneis 
originated in the Old World. 

All the other species, in the opinion of most 
critical entomologists, are different from those of 
the Old World, but in all cases they approach so 
closely to them that many writers have considered 
them as identical. The Green Comma (Polygonia 
faunus) is a case in point. It has been considered 
as identical with one of the forms of the variable 
Conuna butterfly (Polygonia c.-album) of Europe ; 
but the facts in the case would seem to show that, 
whereas the species of the Old World are few 
and variable, those of the New are numerous and 



212 ORIGIN OF BUTTERFLIES 

closely allied, and at the same time frequently 
dimorphic or even polymorphic. The excess to 
which variabihty has extended in this country 
would therefore seem to indicate this as its older 
abode. The opposite is probably true of Eugonia, 
represented in this country by a single species ; 
this is considered by many as identical with Eu- 
gonia vau-album of Europe, which has there for its 
companion many very closely allied species. The 
Gray- veined White (Pieris oleracea), almost our 
only native species of Pieris, considered by many 
as the same as the Green-veined White (Pieris 
napi) of the Old World, has also many allies in 
the Old World, and therefore, hke Pieris rapae, 
probably originated there. Finally, Pamphila, 
represented in this country by only a single species, 
the Arctic Skipper (P. mandan), widely separated 
from all its allies, strong of flight and extending to 
Alaska, belongs to a genus represented in the Old 
World with its immediate allies by several peculiar 
types, which range across the entire breadth of the 
continent ; we must therefore look upon this spe- 
cies as one introduced from the Old World, but at 
a period of time so long ago as to have become 
fairly distinct from the primal stock. 

If now we turn our attention to the butterflies 



OF OLD AND NEW WORLD 213 

found north of our boundary and not extending 
into it, we shall find a considerable assemblage 
of species, from twenty-five to thirty in number, 
belonging to as many as thirteen genera; and we 
shall at once be struck by the fact that in every 
case these genera are represented either by the 
same or by allied species in the Old World ; and 
what is more, that in all cases but one they are 
more, often much more, bountifully supplied with 
distinct forms in the Old World than in the New. 
Thus we find several species of Oeneis, two of 
which occur in Europe, four of Erebia, and two or 
three of Coenonympha, all considered distinct from 
those of Europe, and confined to the western haK 
of our continent ; five species of Brenthis, of which 
three are looked upon as identical with those of 
Europe, and one of Lemonias ; one each of the 
lycaenid genera Cupido, Agriades, and Epidemia, 
all distinct from the European species, ^yq or six 
species of Eurymus, of which at least two are found 
in Europe, one of Pontia, two of Parnassius, one 
of which is found in Europe, the same of Papilio, 
and finally one of Erynnis, which also occurs in 
Europe. This last genus is the one to which we 
referred as being far more developed in America 
than in Europe ; indeed, the European species, the 



214 ORIGIN OF BUTTERFLIES 

Pearl Skipper (E. comraa), is only known upon 
our continent by a varietal form occurring in 
Labrador. 

Of the above thirteen genera we further notice 
that the species of no less than five of them — 
Erebia, Coenonympha, Lemonias, Cupido, and 
Parnassius, including a dozen of the species — are 
altogether confined to the western haK of the con- 
tinent, and show a distinct geographical relation to 
Alaska. While on the other hand, not one of the 
genera is confined to the eastern half ; and besides 
this not any genus of American butterflies not 
found in Europe, with the sole exception of Phyci- 
odes and Basilarchia (by a single species in each 
case), shows any special tendency to extend its 
domain toward Alaska. The avenue of migration 
is thus clearly marked. 

It would seem, therefore, very clear that the 
identity or intimate resemblance which occurs in 
certain species between the butterflies of Europe 
and America is due altogether to their, boreal char- 
acter ; that their occurrence on the two continents, 
looked at from a broad point of view, must be re- 
garded as the consequence of a continuity or close 
proximity of laud during later tertiary times, when 
a warm climate prevailed in the high north ; and 



OF OLD AND NEW WORLD 215 

that the distinction between them, and even the rep- 
resentation of the same genus on the two conti- 
nents by clearly different species, is due to the sub- 
sequent separation of the two regions in glacial and 
post-glacial times, and the variations which isola- 
tion, a difference of climatic conditions, and their 
general enviromnent have brought about in the 
lapse of time. 



XXIY. 

ANTIGENT ; OR SEXUAL DIVERSITY IN BUTTER- 
FLIES 

If male and female butterflies of the same spe- 
cies always resembled each otber more tban either 
resembled the same sex of an allied species, the 
work of the systematist would be easy, and we may 
perhaps add, — stupid. No such simplicity, no 
such stupidity, is in store for him. Nature is con- 
stantly perplexing him, piquing his curiosity, test- 
ing the sharpness of his wit, and leading him on 
from one comparison or one conclusion to another, 
till he finds himself confronted with questions of 
deepest interest and wide purport. It matters lit- 
tle what branch of zoology a student may follow ; 
modern science, with its new questions born of 
evolution, will not leave the mind to stagnate. 

By secondary sexual diversity, or antigeny, as it 
may be more briefly termed, is meant all such ac- 
cessory pecuHarities of one sex or the other as are 
not directly connected with generation. They are 



SEXUAL DIVERSITY 217 

multiform and multitudinous. Tlie lines of erect 
hairs on the upper surface of the wings of some 
Satyrinae and Argynnini, the gland-like spot at the 
base of the wings or the powdery band at the mar- 
gin in some Rhodocerini, the little oval disk near 
the middle of the front edge of the upper surface 
of the fore wings of most Theclini, the pocket be- 
side the first median nervule of the hind wings of 
Anosia, the umsclilag or fold of the front edge of 
the fore wings in many Hesperini, and the velvety 
dash in the middle of the fore wings of nearly all 
the Pamphihni, always confined to the males, — 
these are all accessory sexual peculiarities found 
on the wings alone, and are quite on a par with 
the characteristic plumage of the males in many 
birds. Or, if one seek something still closer, he 
may find it in the bristling front of the head of 
the Theclini. 

So when we come to color, and, to a certain very 
limited extent, to its distribution in definite ar- 
rangement upon the surface of the wing, we find 
the same thing. Here we may pass from the sim- 
plest imaginable distinctions to those which are quite 
extraordinary. In the Painted Beauty (Vanessa 
huntera), for example, a slender, short, transverse 
stripe near the apex of the upper wings is white in 



218 SEXUAL DIVERSITY 

one sex and orange in the other ; nothing could be 
simpler than this, and the distinction is so slight 
it might be readily overlooked, yet it is the only 
difference one can find, and there is nothing anal- 
ogous to it in the allied species, the Painted Lady 
(V. cardui). On the other hand, the two sexes of 
the Spring Beauty (Erora laeta) have so different 
an appearance that it is not strange that they were 
originally described by the same person as two 
distinct species ; and the difference is still more 
marked in the Chrysophanini, where it may possi- 
bly be said to affect also the pattern of coloration. 
In one species, the Purple Disk (Epidemia epi- 
xanthe), the female, besides lacking on its upper 
surface the brilliant and peculiar lustre of the op- 
posite sex, is also marked by the presence of a row 
of blackish spots, which is quite wanting in the 
male. In another, the Bronze Copper (Chryso- 
phanus thoe), the male has the upper surface of 
a deep coppery hue, with a narrow black border ; 
while the female has a deep orange color with a 
broad black margin and a transverse row of dis- 
tinct black spots near the middle of the outer half 
of the wing, which appear in the male only through 
the diaphanous nature of the wings, the same row 
occurring in both sexes upon the under surface. 



IN BUTTERFLIES 219 

Tliis strikes us as the more remarkable since, in 
the two New England genera which are most 
closely allied to it, and with one of which it is usu- 
ally directly associated, no such sexual distinction 
is found. A somewhat similar example occurs in 
the Black Swallow-tail (Papilio polyxenes), the 
male of which presents upon the upper and under 
surfaces of all the wings, a little distance beyond 
the middle, a transverse series of yellowish or 
orange spots, which are equally distinct on the 
under surface of the female, but partially or some- 
times wholly obsolete above. In the Whirlabout 
(Thymelicus brettus) we have even a more conspic- 
uous example. The female is very dark brown, 
almost black, with two little yellow spots in the 
middle of the front wings ; while the male differs 
totally, being tawny, with indented brown borders 
and an obhque black dash in the middle of the 
front vdngs ; at first glance no one could suppose 
them identical. In Semnopsyche diana the male 
is a rich dark brown, with a very broad fulvous 
margin upon all the wings, marked on the front 
wings by one or two rows of black spots. The fe- 
male, on the other hand, is a rich purple black, 
with no trace of fulvous, but with the space where 
it belongs occupied on the fore wings by three rows 



220 SEXUAL DIVERSITY 

of white spots and dashes, and on the hind wings 
by two belts of blue, broken into spots, one of the 
belts narrow, the other exceedingly broad. ^ 

It is not a little remarkable that in all these 
examples, and mdeed in very nearly all that have 
come under my notice, this sexual diversity is dis- 
played only upon the upper surface of the wings, 
and almost invariably upon the fore wings,^ a 
mark of ancestry and of the lower position of 
moths, in which the hind wings are covered by the 
front wings in repose, and are as a rule less orna- 
mented by diverse patterns. "We might perhaps 
anticipate the restriction of the characteristics to 
the fore wings, since upon the upper surface the 
complication of colorational design in butterflies 
is greater on these than on the hind wings; yet 
this same reasoning makes their restriction to the 
upper surface the more striking, since the under 
surface of the hind wings of butterflies is usually 
more variegated than any other part. 

^ Here, however, as is shown elsewhere, the difference is 
really due to another disturbing element, mimicry. 

2 De Nicdville states that in Ergolis, a genus of oriental 
Nymphalidae, the males have a large patch of glistening 
scales on the under surface of the fore wings (Butt. Indian ii. 
8) ; and what under the circumstances is curious, these but- 
terflies always settle with expanded wings. 



IN BUTTERFLIES 221 

Now in all these cases of colorational antigeny, 
it is tlie female and almost never the male which 
first departs from the normal type of coloring of 
the group to which the species belongs. Occasion- 
ally the feminine peculiarity has been transmitted 
to the male, and, by this means, a new type of col- 
oration established in the group ; I recall among 
our butterflies but one ^ case where the male alone 
departs from the general type of coloring peculiar 
to the group. This is precisely the opposite con- 
clusion to that which Darwin reached. He gives 
several examples on the authority of Bates, which 
certainly favor his conclusion, but may, at the 
same time, be explained from the opposite point 
of view. He gives other examples from the Eu- 
ropean blue butterflies, which not only do not sup- 
port, but even oppose, his general statement. 

Take the case of Semn. diana, than which we 
could hardly find a stronger, since the group 
(Argynnini) to which it belongs is remarkably 
uniform, exhibiting in all its numerous members 
the same characteristic play of fulvous and black 
markings. The male of S. diana is indeed very 

^ The Spring Azure (Cyaniris pseudargiolus), in which 
both sexes are ordinarily blue upon the upper surface, but 
in the south the male is sometimes brown. 



222 SEXUAL DIVERSITY 

unlike most other fritillaries, but it retains, never- 
theless, abundant traces of tbe same style of ornar 
mentation, and has precisely tbe same colors ; 
while the female departs widely from the charac- 
teristic features of ornamentation in the group, 
and in addition loses every trace of fulvous, so 
that no one at first glance would recognize it as 
a member of the Argynnini. Or, if it be objected 
that a case of variation through mimicry should 
not be used here, take the Clouded Sulphur 
(Eurymus philodice), and its allies. In some 
Eurymi, indeed, there are only pale females ; but 
in others all, or most of the females, are yeUow or 
orange, like the males ; and any one who knows 
how yellow and orange tints prevail throughout 
the group of Ehodocerini will acknowledge that 
the color of the males is normal. So, too, with 
the blues (Lycaenini), which Darwin himself 
quotes ; in almost all of them, both males and 
females are of some shade of blue ; in comparar 
tively few, the males are blue and the females 
brown ; in exceedingly few, both sexes are brown ; 
and the very fact that they are familiarly known 
as " blues " is a popular recognition of the pre- 
vaihng color. In the gToup of skippers to which 
Th^Tuehcus brettus belongs (Pamphilini), the 



IN BUTTERFLIES 223 

prevailing colors, at least in the temperate zones, 
are certainly tawny and black or brown; the 
latter, marginal. This is the case with the male 
of the Whirlabout (T. brettus), while the female 
diverges from the type in becoming wholly brown. 
In the Tiger Swallow-tail (Jasoniades glaucus), 
where we sometimes have a black female, it is 
more difficult to decide what should be considered 
the normal color, owing to diversity of view upon 
the relationship of many of the swallow-tails ; but 
to judge only from those agreed by all to be most 
nearly allied to it, there can be no question what- 
ever that the striped character prevails. 

It will also be noticed, in this last case and 
others given, that wherever partial antigeny or 
dimorphism is confined to one sex, it is nearly 
always to the female ; Cyaniris seems to furnish 
our only exception to this rule. In these in- 
stances, on my hypothesis, half of the females 
depart from the type ; on Darwin's, half of the 
females, and all of the males. But if, on Darwin's 
theory, sometimes one half and sometimes three 
quarters of a species has diverged from the type, 
why does it so rarely happen that only one fourth 
of the species diverges ? 

The instances given by Darwin, which strongly 



224 SEXUAL DIVERSITY 

sustain Ms view, are drawn from specimens of 
the South American genus Epicalia, found in the 
rich cabinet of Mr. Bates. The facts, as stated 
by him, are these : There are twelve species of 
the genus discussed by him; of these, niae have 
gaudy males and plain females ; one has plain 
male and plain female ; and two have gaudy 
males and gaudy females. The plain females, he 
adds, '' resemble each other in their general type 
of coloration, and likemse resemble both sexes ia 
several allied genera, found in various parts of the 
world." To examine this case fairly would need 
a large collection of exotic butterflies. If we con- 
fine ourselves to Epicaha, we evidently cannot 
say whether the gaudy or the plain coloring be 
normal ; there would be less variation from the 
standard on the supposition that the gaudy were 
the normal type, and in this case it is the female 
which has departed from the type ; but the differ- 
ence is not enough to form an objection. It is 
only when we look at the allies of Epicalia that 
judgment seems to lean toward Darwin's side; 
but, from the unfortunate want of material, I can- 
not fairly discuss this point. 

Take, however, another case, which appears to 
be equally complicated, — our native coppers 



IN BUTTERFLIES 225 

(Clirysoplianini.) We have one species in which 
both sexes are fiery red marked with black ; an- 
other where both are fulvous marked with black ; 
others where both sexes are brown ; and several 
where the male is brown, marked with fulvous, 
and the female fulvous, marked with brown; 
others where the male is wholly brown, and the 
female fulvous, spotted with brown ; and again 
others with fiery male and brown female. We 
have nearly every possible variation, but the prev- 
alent feature is a dark male, often with more or 
less metallic reflections, which sometimes increase 
so as to give the insect a fiery copper hue ; and 
a fulvous, spotted, and margined female. I do 
not see how we can possibly discover, with any 
certainty, from within the Hmits of the group of 
coppers, what should be considered the normal 
type. Nor are we much better off in an exami- 
nation outside the group ; there the prevailing tint 
is either brown or blue ; and I am inclined to 
think that brown, tending strongly to copper, 
should be considered the normal type ; in which 
case the males are normal, and the species gen- 
erally antigenic. 



XXV. 

LETHARGY IN CATEKPILLAES 

One of the most inexplicable phenomena in the 
life-history of butterflies is the fact that during 
the only period of activity in the preparatory 
stages, a period when all the energies seem to be 
concentrated on eating and growing, there should 
occasionally intervene a lethargic period when all 
activities are suspended, the creature partakes of 
no nourishment, moves at most only by its own 
leng-th to secure a position more to its liking, as 
a drowsy sleeper turns in bed, and that this period 
should last for weeks or even months. 

There are lethargic periods in the life of every 
caterpillar, when it has gorged itself to the full 
and rests quietly to digest its meal ; but these last 
at most but a few hours. For those that feed ex- 
clusively by day, or by night, as the case may be, 
there is also that slightly longer diurnal period 
when they enjoy a period of quiet shared with a 
great body of their fellow creatures, including our- 



LETHARGY . 227 

selves. There is further that much longer period 
of inactivity which comes to those that must pass 
the winter in the caterpillar stage, a period we 
call hibernation, and which is immediately related 
to low temperature and absence of food. 

The period of inactivity termed lethargy is 
directly connected with this last, although neither 
of the provocative causes are present. It is a 
period of greater or less duration, lasting from 
a few days to a few months, generally as much as 
two or three weeks, often in the very heat of mid- 
summer, when the food-plant of the caterpillar is 
superabundant and low temperatures are at far- 
thest remove. In some instances it extends from 
midsummer to winter and so may be called pre- 
mature hibernation. In nearly, if not quite, all 
cases it affects only a portion of any given brood 
of caterpillars, the remainder of the brood contin- 
uing on in the regular course. Even the portion 
which is concerned in it may be unequally affected, 
some arousing from the torpor at the end of a few 
weeks and proceeding regularly thereafter with 
their transformations, others continuing torpid to 
and through the winter. This shows its direct 
relation to hibernation. The same phenomenon 
occurs in the chrysalis state, where sometimes 



228 LETHARGY 

early in the season a portion of a brood will dis- 
close the butterfly, while another portion will re- 
tain the inmates until the succeeding spring. But 
its occurrence in the active larval stage is far 
more unexpected. 

This lethargy in caterpillars was first observed 
by a French naturalist named Yaudouer more 
than sixty years ago, but his statements lay a long 
while nearly unnoticed. According to this ob- 
server (a full account of whose observations is 
given in my New England Butterflies), one of 
the European species of Brenthis upon which he 
experimented flies in May and again in July and 
August. The caterpillars from the second sum- 
mer brood are half grown when winter comes, 
hibernate in this stage, and in time produce the 
spring brood ; the caterpillars of the spring brood, 
when they have reached the hibernating age, late 
in June, act in a precisely similar manner, and 
some of them do not arouse until the succeeding 
spring, when, with the caterpillars of the summer 
brood, they produce a new spring brood; but 
other caterpillars of the spring brood, which be- 
came lethargic, awaken from their torpidity after a 
time, resume eating, undergo their transformations, 
and emerge as butterflies in July and August. 



IN CATERPILLARS 229 

This same feature occurs in some of our own 
species of Brenthis as I have several times ob- 
served. It is also found in some of the Melitae- 
ini, and I suspect also in the genus Argjmnis, 
from the fact that there are in some places two 
apparent broods of the butterfly, months apart, 
but only one period of egg-laying. Since in these 
cases the winter is passed in the larval condition, 
the caterpillar just from the Qgg^ it would appear 
probable that lethargy makes its appearance in 
the spring and early summer among the growing 
caterpillars, or else, what seems less likely, the 
period passed in chrysalis is very unequal. 

It is possible that to this list should be added 
those Theclini and Chrysophanini which ostensibly 
pass the winter in the Qgg state. If, as is prob- 
able, these eggs mature during the hot season 
in which they are laid, and not in the succeeding, 
cooler, early spring when the caterpillar escapes, 
then the only difference between these caterpillars 
and those of the Argynnini is that one passes the 
winter within, the other without the egg-sheU ; 
and their refusal to escape in the warm weather 
points to premature hibernation, beginning in a 
kind of lethargy. 

The cause of this strange feature in butterfly 



230 LETHARGY 

life must be attributed, like all other points in 
their history, to the struggle for the perpetuity of 
the species. Should disaster befall the advance 
guard who have not halted by the way, the slug- 
gards can take up the work ; the chances of sur- 
vival are, not doubled perhaps, but greatly in- 
creased. Nature seizes upon some phenomenon 
in the life of each species and turns it to its ad- 
vantage ; thus in the European Brenthis, it seizes 
on the caterpillar's habit of hibernation when half 
grown, and forces the spring brood of caterpillars 
at that point in their growth to premature hiber- 
nation, in which some continue throughout the 
hot weather and until the following spring. Do 
not all these strange phenomena, invariably look- 
ing toward the surer survival of the species, point 
to something superior to the mere forces of evolu- 
tion, controlling and directing them? Surely, if 
hibernation be the pure result of physical causa- 
tion — and nothing seems simpler than that — 
where are the physical causes that j&rst produced 
premature hibernation in midsummer? If it be 
said that this is subsequently induced through in- 
heritance by the habit of the alternating brood, 
we may ask : Why does not this occur in Ba- 
silarchia, which winters in the same stage, and 



IN CATERPILLARS 231 

in whose caterpillars of tlie spring brood no such 
premature hibernation or sign of lethargy occurs ? 
No, the deeper we look into these phenomena, 
the surer seem to be the signs that the forces 
provoking the changes and characteristics ob- 
served are doing their work in no blind fashion, 
but rather under the impulse of some controlling 
and thoughtful power. 



XXYI. 

A BUDGET OF CURIOUS FACTS ABOUT CHEYSAI.IDS 

Examine any butterfly chrysalis you please, and 
you will find on either side of tlie head, close to 
the base of the antennae and partially overlapped 
by them, a smooth crescent-shaped belt, which 
generally contrasts rather strongly with the rough- 
ened surfaces about it. It corresponds closely in 
position with the curving row of simple ocelli found 
on the head of the caterpillar, where it is generally 
marked by a distinct impression ; it also hes across 
the middle of the convexity which marks the posi- 
tion of the compound eye of the inclosed butterfly ; 
the convex case of the rest of the eye is rough and 
coarse like the chrysalis skin generally, but this 
curved ribbon is smooth and tliin, and regularly 
embossed, each gentle elevation apparently corre- 
sponding to the centre of a facet of a compound 
eye. Now it has been suggested that this belt is 
a window tlu-ough which the prisoner may look 
abroad ; what end this would serve is not ex- 



ABOUT CHRYSALIDS 233 

plained ; nor have the structure, form, and position 
of the belt been taken into consideration. No 
underlying structure, as far as I am aware, has 
been found related to it alone ; and as an external 
covering of an eye its structure is midway between 
that of the caterpillar and the perfect insect. 
May it be a relic of the past, the external sign 
of what once was ? Are we to look upon this as 
one hint that the archaic butterfly in its transfor- 
mations passed through an active pupal state, like 
the lowest insects of to-day, when its limbs were 
unsheathed, its appetite unabated, and its daily 
necessities required the use of a compound eye, 
such as would result from the multiplication and 
conglomeration of simple eyes within the normal 
oceUar field of the larva? This, it is true, is 
merely speculation ; but whatever explanation of 
the structure of this glassy band is given must 
account for its form and its relation to the larval 
row of tubercles. 

There is another peculiarity in the head of 
certain chrysalids which demands our attention 
and an explanation of its cause, since it is found 
in some groups and not in others. On either side 
of the front of the head there is often a roughened 
angulate or conical projection, bearing no relation 



234 A BUDGET OF CURIOUS FACTS 

whatever to tlie parts beneath, but looking like a 
pair of clumsy horns or ears projecting forward ; 
other chrysalids have the front extremity prolonged 
in the middle, while the sides of the head are 
quite smooth and regular ; others again have the 
same smooth and bluntly rounded head which 
generally characterizes the pupa of moths. Since 
these projections are mere extensions of the pellicle 
and quite hollow, it might be presumed that they 
indicated some variation in the Hfe of the chrys- 
alis ; and such, at least generally, is indeed the 
fact. Many chrysalids are protected by some sort 
of a cocoon, and these have perfectly smooth and 
rounded heads ; so, too, have those which, though 
exposed, are girt immovably to the object they 
have chosen as their support. Other chrysalids 
are attached by the tail and loosely bound about 
the middle by a girth which allows the body to 
sway from side to side ; while still others hang 
freely by their hinder extremity. In these two 
latter cases the chrysalids may be blown hither 
and thither by every breeze and are liable to 
injury from neighboring objects ; as in all cases 
the tail is fastened, their point of greatest motion 
is of course the head, and this, therefore, is 
guarded by projecting roughnesses. In those 



ABOUT CHRYSALIDS 235 

wHch hang freely there are some exceptions to tMs 
rule, as is the case especially with the Satyrids, but 
even here some angulations or little conical tuber- 
cles may be discovered ; and, besides, the chrysalis 
stage of such species is invariably passed in mid- 
summer, and therefore is very brief. So far as I 
am aware, every chrysalis which lives through the 
winter, and whose body hangs at the mercy of the 
wind, has its head protected as I have described ; 
those which hang freely have always the two 
frontal projections; those which are also loosely 
girt about the middle sometimes have the same, or 
they may have the single extension in front. It is, 
indeed, only by exception that any of our pendant 
chrysalids pass the winter at all. So good an 
observer as Eambur, whose observations were made 
in Spain long ago, remarked : " Je ne connais, du 
reste, aucune espece dont la chrysalide soit suspen- 
due, qui passe I'hiver en cet etat." 

It may also be noticed that chrysalids with 
extraordinary projections or ridges in other parts 
of the body all belong to the same free-moving 
groups ; the greater the danger to the chrysalis 
from surrounding objects, the greater its protection 
by horny tubercles and roughened callous ridges ; 
the greater the protection possessed in other ways, 



236 A BUDGET OF CURIOUS FACTS 

as by firm swathing or a safe retreat, the smoother 
the surface of the body and the more regular and 
rounded its contours. We have thus a complete 
explanation of all the angularities in the surface 
of the body, with the sole exception of certain 
horn-like protuberances on the front of the head 
in some Pamphilini, which may possibly be of use 
in keeping the body from too great movement in 
the cocoon-like inclosure in which the chrysalis is 
protected. 

There is a further peculiarity in our chrysahds 
which strikes one as odd when first noted, though 
it is not confined to them alone. In certain 
instances the chrysalids of neighboring groups very 
nearly resemble each other, while the caterpillars 
from which they came diif er strikingly ; and the 
reverse is equally true. No better instances can be 
given than in our genera of swallow-tails. The 
chrysalids of Jasoniades and Papilio, for instance, 
are very much alike, and would often be mistaken 
for each other did the size agree ; while the cater- 
pillars from which they come differ in the most 
striking manner, not only in color and markings 
— a difference of special importance in naked cater- 
pillars — but also in form. To reverse the pic- 
ture, the caterpillars of Jasoniades and Euphoe- 



ABOUT CHRYSALIDS 237 

ades are of precisely tlie same form and color, on 
a first view, differing only in some minor points of 
markings, while their chrysalids seem made on 
quite a different plan. 

One finds the same thing true in certain groups, 
if the other stages of life are also examined. It 
only serves to show that selection has seized upon 
every available point of structure at each stage of 
life, and quite mdependently ; so that it is only by 
the summation of characteristics of all the stages 
that we may arrive at a true conception of their 
actual relationships. In some groups selection has 
apparently found nothing in one stage to seize upon 
to answer its ends, and all the members of that 
group show then a dull uniformity which would 
seem to indicate no great antiquity, or in other 
words a very intimate relationship between its 
different members ; when, if another stage be 
studied, we find at once where selection has been 
employing her forces, and can only regard the 
differences here as marks of an immense lapse of 
time since the common ancestor of all flourished 
upon the earth. 

But to leave these general considerations and 
to return to our chrysalids. We have pointed out 
some common features of interest about their struc- 



238 A BUDGET OF CURIOUS FACTS 

ture. Can we find anything worthy of remark in 
the life of such apparently lifeless things? Cer- 
tainly ; we may fairly call a chrysalis a most fickle 
object, a most uncertain creature. Has it not 
been mentioned over and over again in recent works 
on butterflies that while one brood may follow 
another with tolerable regTdarity, broods are apt 
to be uneven in their numbers, because some chrys- 
alids fail to disclose their inmates at the expected 
time but wait a little or a longer time? That 
there should be some little variation due perhaps 
to conditions of temperature might be expected ; 
but that the continence of the chrysalis should be 
precisely enough to have it just skip a brood is 
certainly reason for wonder, for here meteoric 
conditions can often have clearly nothing to do 
with it. Some instances, indeed, are on record 
where, when normally a single ^dnter would mark 
the duration of a chrysalis, it has lasted two win- 
ters and, of course, the intervening summer. All 
these variations seem to be provisions of nature 
to guard against destruction of the species under 
adverse circumstances. Nature seems always on 
her guard. 

Or take a kindred fact. It is well known to 
the aurelian that the males of a given brood almost 



ABOUT CHRYSALIDS 239 

invariably make their appearance before the fe- 
males, sometimes only a day or two, sometimes as 
many weeks. It seems only another instance, so 
many of which are known in both animal and veg- 
etable kingdoms, of a device to secure fertilization. 
Now, Mr. Edwards, with his unrivaled experience 
in breeding butterflies, teUs us, what all of us have 
seen on a smaller scale, that when bred in confine- 
ment, not exposed to all the vicissitudes of the 
weather, the females appear quite as early as the 
males. What subtle influence then is it which 
earlier awakes the male under wholly natural con- 
ditions ? 

We owe to Wilhelm Miiller (a brother of Fritz 
Miiller, who has made so many neat observations 
in the natural history of tropical animals) a curi- 
ous fact in the lives of the free hanging chrysalids 
of tropical Nymphalidae. Every naturalist knows 
how rarely these chrysalids are discovered in free 
nature ; most of our knowledge of them comes 
from those raised in confinement ; for the cater- 
pillar nearly always seeks an obscure place in 
which to change, or else imitates in its color and 
perchance in its form, surrounding objects. Now 
Miiller has discovered that many of them are 
directly sensitive to light and will respond, slowly 



240 A BUDGET OF CURIOUS FACTS 

indeed but efPectually, to its presence. To experi- 
ment upon them he devised an arrangement by 
which the light — not the direct rays of the sun, 
but merely its light — could be thrown upon them 
from one direction or another without touching 
them, and he found them capable of changing their 
position, some of them from side to side, some 
from a pendant to a horizontal position, through 
an angle, varying in the species, of from 45° to 70° 
or even 90°, in order to present as little surface 
to the light as possible, to get, as it were, in the 
shade ; some responded to changes as frequent as 
a dozen in six hours. The experiments were made 
with a number of species; one of them was an 
Ageronia, which, pendant when ui the dark, in the 
light hugged the horizontal surface from which it 
hung so as to assume the attitude of a girt Papili- 
onid, whence arose, Miiller believes, the error of 
Lacordaire and others, who asserted Ageronia had 
a girt chrysaHs. As not a few of the chrysalids 
most frequently experunented on died or produced 
crippled butterflies, Miiller believes that too much 
light is injurious to them, and reasoned that this 
movement was therefore one of protection. But 
he found one very strange exception to the rest in 
a species of Catonephele, which responded to his 



ABOUT CHRYSALIDS 241 

experiments in an exactly opposite manner, bend- 
ing to receive on its side tlie fullest amount of light 
and reversing its position when the light was trans- 
ferred to the opposite quarter. Surely we have 
much yet to learn from apparently lifeless chrysa- 
lids. 



XXVII. 

DIGONEUTISM IN BUTTERFLIES 

In all plural brooded butterflies with an exten- 
sive distribution in latitude, the number of genera- 
tions varies with the length of the season, and this 
will account for the apparent waste we often see 
as winter approaches, for such changes must be 
gradual, and in intermediate districts irregular, 
dependent upon the season. Where, as is some- 
times the case, some chrysalids of each brood live 
until the following spring, it manifestly makes lit- 
tle difference how short the season may be, or how 
suddenly and effectually any brood may be cut off ; 
these chrysahds, and so the species, will survive. 
That this feature is more common than is generally 
supposed is shown by the increasing number of 
proofs brought forward of lethargic tendencies in 
caterpillars and of persistent torpor ia many mid- 
summer chrysalids. It is also indicated by the 
variation in the numerical proportions of different 
broods ; the winter is the severest season, and con- 



DIGONEUTISM 243 

sequently tlie spring broods are ordinarily, and 
under simple conditions would always be, less nu- 
merous tban the summer or autumn broods ; gen- 
erally the broods go on increasing in individuals 
as the season advances ; but in some it is not so, 
and it may be presumed that these are species 
which have not long enjoyed the privilege of a sec- 
ond brood, or, in other words, those in which a 
part of the chrysalids fail to persist until the fol- 
lowing spring. In the case of our Tiger Swallow- 
tail, which is found from Alaska to Florida, we 
have a butterfly which is single brooded in the 
north and double brooded in New England; but 
the second brood is much less abundant than the 
first, and the change as we go north is probably 
effected by the lingering development of some 
caterpillars and the disposition of chrysalids to 
winter early. Wherever in a double brooded but- 
terfly the second brood is less abundant than the 
first, it is probable that the butterfly is partly 
single and partly double brooded — that is, that 
the early brood of a given year is made up of the 
direct descendants of each brood of the preceding 
year. 

Occasionally, the difference in the number of 
broods affects the mode of hibernation. The Black 



244 DIGONEUTISM 

Swallow-tail, for instance, is triple brooded in the 
south, and hibernates as a butterfly and perhaps 
also as a chrysalis ; in the north it is double 
brooded, and hibernates only as a chrysalis. 

Digoneutism or polygoneutism, then, is either a 
device of nature for the better perpetuation of the 
species, by varying the conditions of its existence 
at any given time, and so multiplying the chances 
of successfully meeting opposing or unfavorable 
agencies ; or it is simply taken advantage of by 
nature as a means thus to vary the conditions. 
The particular problem difficult of solution which 
it carries in its train is this : In some species — 
and it would appear to be no very uncommon 
occurrence, and to be found among moths as well 
as butterflies — the result of summer dormancy in 
the caterpillar or prolonged life in the chrysalis 
is that, by some unexplained common impulse, the 
caterpillars or the chrysalids that arouse after leth- 
argy, and do not hibernate, more frequently than 
otherwise do this at such a time that the resultiag 
butterfly flies with its nephews and nieces instead 
of with its brethren and sisters, i. e., it bridges 
over with considerable accuracy the interval be- 
tween two generations in midsummer, just as hap- 
pens from easily perceived causes when winter 



IN BUTTERFLIES 245 

intervenes. Wlio solves this problem will win de- 
served renown. 

What may be the exact climatic features wMcli 
determine the number of generations of a butterfly- 
lias not yet been studied ; but there are some curi- 
ous difficulties in the way of understanding them. 
The Painted Lady (Vanessa cardui), for instance, 
is double brooded in New England, both in the 
districts where the contrasts of heat and cold, 
moisture and drought, are excessive, — that is, 
where the climate has those peculiarities which are 
termed " continental ; " and also on islands such 
as Nantucket in southern New England, where a 
much greater evenness prevails and the cKmate 
partakes of an "insular" character; yet in the 
valleys of Switzerland, where perhaps of all places 
in Europe the climate presents the greatest and 
most sudden inequalities, and therefore is most 
similar to that of New England, and certainly more 
" continental " than that of Nantucket, this butter- 
fly is single brooded. We have exceedingly few 
identical butterflies in Europe and the United 
States, and this apparently is the only one of them 
that differs in its broods in the two countries ; but 
there are several of our butterflies which are repre- 
sented by very closely allied species in Europe, 



246 DIGONEUTISM 

and in half a dozen or more of these we find quite 
similar disparities, all of wMch are in the same 
direction. 

The European Tortoise-shell (Aglais urticae), 
for example, is generally double brooded; occa- 
sionally a triple brood is mentioned ; it is one of 
the commonest of European butterflies, and reaches 
from the North Cape to the Mediterranean ; our 
congeneric species, the American Tortoise-shell 
(Aglais milberti), is rarely found south of the 
northernmost parts of the United States, and yet 
it is triple brooded in all parts of Canada. Even 
the Dappled Fritillary (Brenthis montinus) of the 
White Mountains is probably double brooded, 
while all the mountain species of Europe are 
single brooded. Everes amyntas, again, occurs 
throughout Europe, with the exception of certain 
northern and northwestern portions, and is double 
brooded; our Tailed Blue (Everes comyntes), 
named for the resemblance to its European con- 
gener, and by some careless authors considered 
identical with it, is also a widespread insect ; but 
even in New England, which is at the northern 
limit of its eastern range, it is triple brooded. 
The widespread European Blues, Rusticus argus 
and R. aegon, the Silver-studded Blue, are usually 



IN BUTTERFLIES 247 

placed among monogoneutic insects, and the latter 
certainly has only a single brood in England 
(where it is the only one of the two found) ; 
Meyer Diir is in fact almost the only author who 
claims these species as digoneutic ; both of them 
occur in southern Europe ; our Pearl-studded 
Violet (Rusticus scudderii), closely allied to these 
and an insect hardly known south of the Canadian 
border, is double brooded. Our Chequered White 
(Pontia protodice) is triple brooded, and the Eu- 
ropean Bath White (P. dapHdice) only double 
brooded, while our common Clouded and Orange 
Sulphurs (Eurymus philodice and E. eurytheme) 
are triple brooded in the north, perhaps polygoneu- 
tic farther south, and the closely allied European 
species only single or double brooded. 

But the most striking example of all will be 
found in the species of the genus Iphiclides. The 
European I. podalirius is confined to the Mediter- 
ranean region, while our Zebra Swallow-tail (I. 
ajax) belongs to the southern half of the United 
States ; the regions are therefore fairly compara- 
ble ; yet we find no mention of more than two 
broods of I. podalirius, while Mr. Edwards believes 
that, even as far north as the Appalachian valleys 
of West Virginia, I. ajax has four and sometimes 
five generations during the year. 



248 DIGONEUTISM 

These cases miglit perhaps be multiplied, and it 
should be added that there is no reversal of the 
rule : among all the butterflies properly compar- 
able on the two continents, there is no single 
instance where the European butterfly has more 
broods than the American. 

This result of the comparison of the annual his- 
tories of similar European and American butter- 
flies thus furnishes but another instance of that 
intensity which seems to characterize all Kfe in 
America. The expenditure of nervous and vital 
energy, against which physicians vainly inveigh, 
which superannuates our merchants, lawyers, cler- 
gymen, and other professional men, is not induced 
by the simple passion for gain, place, power, or 
knowledge, but by an uncontrollable restlessness, a 
constant dissatisfaction with present attainments, 
which marks us as a hurrying, energetic, enter- 
prising people. My own experience has been that 
studies of precisely the same nature and undertaken 
under similar external conditions are accompanied 
by a very different mental state on the two conti- 
nents. In Europe we are content to plod industri- 
ously on, unconscious of the need of relaxation ; in 
America we bend with nervous intensity to our 
work, and carry the same excitement into the 




IPHICLIDES AJAX 



IN BUTTERFLIES 249 

relaxation whicli such a life inevitably demands. 
After a long absence in Europe, a keen observer 
may even be directly conscious of this quickened 
Hfe. 

Now to what shall we ascribe such peculiarities 
in animal life ? Naturally we look to climatic in- 
fluences, and our attention is first attracted by the 
well-known fact that if we compare two places in 
Europe and America having the same mean an- 
nual temperature, the extremes of variation will 
prove much greater on this side of the Atlantic. 
For example, while the mean annual temperature 
of New York is about the same as that of Frank- 
fort, the summer temperature of the former is that 
of Rome and its winter that of St. Petersburg. 
Moreover, the changes from summer to winter and 
from winter to summer are more immediate in 
America; or, in other words, the summers and 
winters are longer by about three weeks. Such 
long and hot summers are of course favorable to 
the multiplication of broods in butterflies whose 
history allows a repetition of the same cycle more 
than once a year ; the length of the winter is of 
slight consequence, as long as the insects can sur- 
vive it ; and it can have no influence upon the 
number of broods, unless there be species (of which 



250 DIGONEUTISM 

we know notMng) able to resist a cold winter only 
in certain stages of existence, and a multiplication 
of wHose broods migbt require some pliability in 
tbis respect. Not only, too, are our summers 
longer and hotter, but they enjoy a marked pre- 
ponderance of sunshine, as compared with Euro- 
pean summers ; and this alone would almost seem 
capable of producing the variation we have noticed 
in the number of broods. 

In an extremely interesting article on the effect 
of our climate on manners and customs, written by 
the Swiss naturalist Desor, who resided several 
years in the United States, this writer attributes 
everjrfching to the far greater dryness of the cli- 
mate, when comparing eastern America and Eu- 
rope. This produces, according to him, a nervous 
irritability, the recognition of which has compelled 
a measure of self-restraint, and the exercise of this 
has gone far to make the development of our po- 
litical institutions possible ! What a future is be- 
fore the coming inhabitants of our arid plains ! 

Differences will be found in all other climatic 
phenomena of the two continents. "From Europe 
as a standard," says Blodgett, " the American cli- 
mate is singularly extreme both in temperature, 
humidity, quantity of rain, wind, and cloudiness or 



IN BUTTERFLIES 251 

sensible humidity. The oscillations of the condi- 
tions are greater, and they vibrate through long 
measures above and below the average. All the 
irregular as well as regular changes are of this 
sort, and the European observer defines the climate 
as directly antagonistic to that he has left." These 
differences, however, as Humboldt and others long 
ago pointed out, have a broader bearing than the 
above statements would imply ; for they are char- 
acteristic of the eastern shores of both worlds as 
opposed to the western, the meteorological phe- 
nomena of the eastern United States being almost 
precisely paralleled by those of northern China, 
where great excesses of temperature occur, with 
wide variability, long summers and winters, and 
rapid transitions. 

Perhaps on these grounds we can most simply 
account for the difference in the number of broods 
in certain butterflies on the two continents ; but, 
if so, then it follows that we ought to anticipate 
similar differences between the broods of some of 
the species found both in Europe and in eastern 
Asia ; a point about which we can assert absolutely 
nothing, for want of data. These grounds, how- 
ever, will certainly be insufficient to account for 
the differences to which we have alluded in man ; 



252 DIGONEUTISM 

for what contrast could well be greater than that 
existing between the national character of the 
Chinese and that of the Americans ! We are 
rather forced to believe that the causes of the dis- 
tinction between the European and the American, 
if these are due to physical agencies, must chiefly 
be sought elsewhere. 



XXVIII. 

PEKIODICITY m THE APPEARANCE OF BUTTER- 
FLIES 

Every year we read in the pages of our ento- 
mological journals sometliing about the rarity or 
abundance of this or that insect. Particularly is 
this the case with those insects which are agricul- 
tural scourges, since here the observation of their 
comparative abundance or scarcity is quickened. 
It is none the less true, however, of other insects, 
and among them of butterflies. Indeed, there are 
comparatively few butterflies which appear in sim- 
ilar numbers every year. There is always more or 
less fluctuation in this regard, but we notice it 
only when their excessive abundance, especially 
with such swarming butterflies as the Monarch 
(Anosia plexippus) and the Painted Lady (Va- 
nessa cardui), or their great rarity causes general 
comment, at least among entomologists. Some- 
times we can directly tell the cause of a scarcity, 
rarely that of a superabundance ; for in the for- 



254 PERIODICITY IN 

mer case, the scarcity may involve several species, 
and the plain cause some excessive or exceptional 
meteorological condition. 

Now though the massive meteorological condi- 
tions which we term climate have undoubtedly 
very much to do with the distribution of butter- 
flies and determine, indeed, in very many cases, 
whether or not a given kind shall or shall not live 
in a certain place, the indirect results of mete- 
orological conditions have undoubtedly more to do 
with the abundance or scarcity of a given butterfly 
in a given season. For the very existence of the 
butterfly shows its capability of withstanding the 
excesses of meteorological conditions in the spot 
in which it lives, and the greatest stresses under 
which it lives are those more active forces, like 
insectivorous creatures and parasites, which find 
their own life dependent on taking its life, or its 
neighbor's. The activity of these is governed 
largely by temperature and storm conditions, and 
hence the indirect influence of meteorological con- 
ditions on the life of the butterfly may be more 
important than the direct. A caterpillar which 
could withstand any amount of cold or of warmth 
in itself considered might not be able to battle 
against the foes which a mild winter kept in un- 
usual activity and need of sustenance. It does 



APPEARANCE OF BUTTERFLIES 255 

not appear that our butterflies suffer particularly 
from an exceptionally cold or long winter, but 
rather from unusual warmth, sufficient to arouse 
insects from torpor at times when hibernation 
should be expected ; or, in the fair season, di- 
rectly from long continued storms and moisture. 

The fluctuation therefore in the niunbers of our 
butterflies is probably due in large measure to the 
activity or inactivity, the abundance or rarity, of 
their active enemies, and especially, considering 
how extensive their depredations, to the abun- 
dance or otherwise of their parasites. It is the 
striking of the balance which exists between a 
creature and its enemies in the struggle of each 
for its own existence. Let some event, untoward 
to it, decrease the ratio of the parasite, — the 
butterfly flourishes ; but its very consequent su- 
perabundance the following year only gives a bet- 
ter pasturing ground to the parasite, reduces the 
butterfly below the normal, and causes the para- 
site to abound inordinately, only to find its food 
supply cut off by its own voracity and inconti- 
nence and the scales again to be turned. It is 
then this perpetual warfare, this unending, inex- 
orable struggle for existence, testing the fitness to 
survive, which is the prime cause of periodicity in 
the abundance of a given species. 



XXIX. 

COLOR PREFERENCES OF BUTTERFLIES, AND THE 
ORIGIN OF THEIR COLOR 

Darwin has maintained, as every one knows, 
that the beauty of flowers depends very largely, 
perhaps entirely, upon insects, the purpose of the 
gayly colored corolla being to attract the insect to 
the spot necessary for it to reach to effect fertili- 
zation in the plant. The broad fact that flowers 
fertilized by the wind are never gayly colored, 
while there are others habitually producing two 
kinds of flowers, one open, colored, and provided 
with nectar to attract insects, the other closed, 
uncolored, destitute of nectar, and never visited by 
insects, seems to render this very clear. But we 
still need to know how color originated in the 
equally or more gayly colored butterflies which 
visit flowers, which the poets have been wont to 
compare to flowers afloat. The prevailing opinion 
has been that this was due in the first instance, 
as in the case of the birds, to sexual selection. 



COLOR PREFERENCES 257 

that male being chosen whicli surpassed in beauty. 
This is the view held b}' Darwin ; but recent 
discoveries in physiology and histology make it 
tolerably clear that butterflies have themselves no 
power of clear vision. They may see masses of 
color, but not definite pattern or form, and as, 
apparently, the disposition far more even than 
the brilliancy of color goes to make up the beauty 
of butterflies, this can in no sense be looked upon 
as a true cause. 

That butterflies have some perception of color 
in mass is unquestionable. It has often been 
remarked that white butterflies alight by prefer- 
ence upon white flowers, yeUow butterflies upon 
yellow flowers. Direct observations have shown 
that this vague opinion is founded clearly upon 
fact, and several instances which show this and at 
the same time show the lack of power of percep- 
tion of form have been published. Thus Christy 
observed in Manitoba one of the swallow-tails 
"fluttering over the bushes, evidently in search 
of flowers. As I watched it," he says, " it settled, 
momentarily and exactly as if it had mistaken it 
for a yellow flower, on a twig of Betula giandu- 
losa bearing withered leaves of a light yellow 
color." Albert MiiUer records seeing the blue 



258 COLOR PREFERENCES 

alexis of Europe fly toward a very small bit of 
pale blue paper lying upon the grass and stop 
within an inch or two of it as if to settle, doubt- 
less mistaking it for another of its own kind. 
Plateau has observed the Small Tortoise-shell 
(Aglais urticae) of Europe fly rapidly toward 
a cluster of artificial flowers, and a species of 
Pieris toward a white calla which could offer it no 
sweets. And Jenner Wier has noticed how the 
white butterflies settled on the variegated leaves 
in his garden. 

Such examples as these seem to indicate that 
butterflies may perceive color in mass, but in no 
case indicate any further visual powers ; and since 
the difference between the sexes is generally 
rather one of disposition of colors than of variety 
in the colors themselves, though the latter is by 
no means wanting, the theory of sexual selection 
proposed by Darwin cannot be rightly claimed to 
cover the general ground. Wallace, moreover, 
has adduced strong reasons for doubting the value 
of this theory, even in those animals against 
whose powers of sight no such stricture can be 
made, believing, as he does, that all differences 
between the sexes can be explained from the fact 
of the greater vigor of the male, and the intensity 



OF BUTTERFLIES 259 

of that vigor in the breeding season. This theory, 
too, would at most hardly do more than explain 
the differences one now finds between the two 
sexes, and coidd not take into account, except 
in a very secondary way, by transmission, that 
wonderful variety and brilliancy of color found 
throughout whole groups of butterflies and com- 
mon to both sexes. 

Wallace has pointed out that, in general, color 
is proportionate to integumentary development, 
that no insects have such widely expanded wings 
in proportion to their bodies as butterflies and 
moths, that in none do the wings vary so much in 
size and form, and in none are they clothed with 
such a beautiful coating of scales. In support of 
the physical theory of the production of color, he 
maintains that numerous color changes must have 
developed in such long continued expansion of 
the membrane, — color changes which have been 
checked, fixed, utflized, or intensified, according to 
the needs of the animal, by natural selection ; and 
by this alone would he explain all the variety 
which we find in the whole tribe of butterflies. 
And this indeed seems to be the best explanation 
that can be offered, and one that is in better ac- 
cordance with our knowledge of the distribution of 



260 COLOR PREFERENCES 

color generally in the animal kingdom, with the 
heightened colors that we find in the tropics, with 
other features of the geographical distribution of 
colors, and with that biological distribution through- 
out great groups in the animal series. Some col- 
ors may therefore be looked upon as of great an- 
tiquity. The prevalence of yellow and orange in 
the Ithodocerini, of white in the Pierini, of white 
and green and orange in the Anthocharini, of coe- 
rulean blue in the Lycaeninae, of silver spots in 
the Argynnini, of browns in the Satyrinae, and of 
other colors in other groups, all indicate that these 
colors have in each instance held control during all 
the changes which have followed the development 
of these types from a common ancestry. 

A very large proportion of the colors and pat- 
terns upon the wings of butterflies, far larger, I 
believe, than is generally conceded, must be looked 
upon as protective and to have originated in the 
simplest possible manner through natural selection. 
Surely if the wonderful mimetic changes we have 
before recorded have been brought about through 
natural selection, and that, too, in comparatively 
recent time, we must allow its power to accomplish 
very much in the modification and distribution of 
pattern. It seems in any event probable that we 



OF BUTTERFLIES 261 

sliall have to concede to the same laws of develop- 
ment which have moulded the structure and form 
of all organized beings, the power to develop that 
wonderful display of color and pattern on the wings 
of butterflies which appeals so powerfully to the 
aesthetic sense of every human being. 

Yet plainly natural selection, as such, cannot 
account for everytliing in color, any more than it 
can in structure. Infinite variety and multiplicity 
of pattern may be due to its action ; but what shall 
we say of infinite harmony ? of a harmony which 
appeals to savage and to sage ? There has yet to be 
brought forward one single line of evidence to show 
that natural selection or any other purely natural, 
law-constrained force can, uncontrolled, produce or 
even sustain that harmony of tint and design which 
each of the whole tribe of butterflies displays on its 
individual surface ; a harmony so infinitely ex- 
tended when comparisons are begun that the eter- 
nities would not suflice to exhaust them ; a har- 
mony pervading the utmost minutiae, which the 
unaided eye cannot perceive ; a harmony appealing 
at every point to the aesthetic sense of the highest 
creature we know, doubtless also to many a lower 
one whose physical and psychological acquirements 
permit it. The untrained child but rarely and ac- 



262 COLOR PREFERENCES 

ci dentally touches a chord upon the piano ; so the 
undirected play of natural forces with color would 
oftenest be misdirected ; and where is the selection 
that shall bring about the survival and perpetua- 
tion of the harmonious ? Nay, that has done it ! 
Every part of the animal frame, the entire econ- 
omy of the animal kingdom, the aesthetics of the 
animal universe, past and present, point to an in- 
finite and eternal directive force, guiding all forces ; 
to an infinite, uplifting power, which we may trust. 



XXX. 

THE FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES OF CATERPILLARS 

One of tlie most surprising statements which 
have been made regarding the caterpillars of but- 
terflies is that they are sometimes accompanied by 
ants, which seem to guard them with great jeal- 
ousy, running about them with nervous activity, 
and rushing with open jaws at any creature that 
approaches. This phenomenon, first observed 
more than a century ago, has been repeatedly wit- 
nessed by others, but owing to the fact that the 
caterpillars in question are very small, usually of 
the color of the leaf or flower upon which they may 
be feeding, slow in movement and of a flattened 
form, they are among the least known of our cat- 
erpillars and rarely are seen by the casual observer. 
For the only caterpillars which are thus accom- 
panied are, as far as known, those which belong to 
the sub-family of the Lycaeninae, and indeed to 
the tribe of Lycaenini or Blues, minute butterflies 
whose caterpillars rarely attain a length of an inch. 



264 THE FRIENDS AND ASSOCIATES 

The cause of this friendship and association is not 
far to seek, for a slight observation of the action of 
the ants will show that they have a reason for their 
devotion to the caterpillars. They tend these as 
they tend plant lice, because each of them has the 
power of exuding, from special glands near the ex- 
tremity of the body, a droplet of fluid having a 
saccharine character, and thus attractive to ants, 
whose fondness for sweet things is well known to 
every housekeeper. In the butterfly caterpillars, 
as may be found in any description of these 
forms, this gland is situated in the middle of the 
body on the seventh abdominal segment, and now 
and then, at the solicitation of the ants, by the 
stroking of their antennae, is evaginated and a 
droplet of fluid exposed, which the ants greedily 
lap up. 

Now, although the only caterpillars attended by 
ants belong to the blue butterflies, the gland which 
secretes the sugary fluid is not confined to the 
caterpillars of these butterflies, but is also found 
in many of their immediate allies, namely, in most 
of the Hair-streaks or Theclini, and in one at least 
of the Coppers, Tomares ballus of Europe. Two 
explanations readily offer themselves : one, that in 
caterpillars so little known as are these, it may 



OF CATERPILLARS 265 

well be true that the association of the ants with the 
caterpillars has escaped notice ; or, on the other 
hand, that in these instances the glands secrete a 
fluid which has no saccharine ingredients. The 
advantage that it may be to the caterpillar to se- 
crete a sweet fluid attractive to ants is obvious, 
since the ants undoubtedly keep off many ichneu- 
mon flies and other enemies of the caterpillar, and 
the mutual benefit conferred by ant and caterpil- 
lar is unquestionable. It is doubtful if in the 
other cases the gland ever secretes a fluid having an 
offensive quality which might equally serve as a 
protection against intruders, since this means of 
defense is probably found, in caterpillars of this 
group, in organs of a very different character upon 
the succeeding abdominal segment, and it is hardly 
to be presumed that two organs, distinct in their 
position and structure, should arise in one and the 
same animal for precisely the same object. The 
use, therefore, of the median gland presumably not 
possessing a saccharine character is very problem- 
atical. 

It should not be overlooked in connection with 
this subject that these caterpillars are themselves 
fond of saccharine matters. They, and only they, of 
all our butterfly caterpillars, attack flowers where 



266 THE FRIENDS OF CATERPILLARS 

lioney is secreted, and we have at least one form 
wliicli has come to have an entirely carnivorous 
diet, feeding upon plant hce bodily for their juices, 
very likely for the same reason that the ants seek 
their secreted fluids in detail. So, too, and possibly 
for the same reason, these creatures not unfre- 
quently show a cannibalistic tendency, feeding upon 
the bodies of their own brethren when they are in 
a helpless condition, as previous to pupation. All 
these subjects are closely related to one another, 
and need to be investigated more carefully in order 
to a complete solution of their meaning. 

It is a curious thing that among the Lycaenini 
these glands are found on some species while not 
found upon others closely allied ; their occurrence 
in many members of the other two tribes of the 
Lycaeninae, together with the impossibility of 
their independent origination in different genera, 
render it probable that these glands fii-st arose as 
long ago as before the differentiation of the three 
tribes of Lycaeninae. The brotherhood of the ants 
and the caterpillars may therefore be of great 
antiquity. 



XXXI. 

BUTTERFLIES OF THE PAST 

Fossil butterflies are the greatest of rarities. 
They occur only in tertiary deposits, and out of the 
myriads of objects that have been exhumed from 
these beds in Europe and America less than 
twenty specimens have been found. The great 
body of these deposits is of course of marine 
origin, but at least thirty thousand specimens of 
insects have been recovered from those beds which 
are not marine. Over fifteen thousand insects 
from the one small ancient lake of Florissant, high 
up in the Colorado Parks, have passed through 
my hands, yet I have seen from there but eight 
butterflies. Each of these belongs to a genus dis- 
tinct from the others, as is also the case with all, 
or all but one, of the butterflies found at Kadoboj, 
at Aix, and at Eott in the European tertiaries. 
With two (European) exceptions, each represents 
an extinct genus, and these two exceptions, Eugo- 
nia and Pontia, are genera found to-day both in 



268 BUTTERFLIES 

Europe and America. The species, however, are 
all extinct. 

One would hardly anticipate that creatures so 
dehcate as butterflies could be preserved in a 
recognizable state in deposits of hardened mud and 
clay. Yet not only is this the case, but they are 
generally preserved in such fair condition that the 
course of the nervures and the color-patterns of 
the wings can be determined, and even, in one case, 
the scales may be studied. As a rule they are so 
well preserved that we may feel nearly as confident 
concerning their affinities with those now living 
as if we had pinned specimens to examine; and 
generally speaking, the older they are the better 
they are preserved. 

There is, to be sure, no great difference in their 
age. Aix and Florissant are probably both 
ohgocene, and in any case can differ but slightly 
in age. One of the butterflies from Aix, Collates, 
comes from beds a little lower than the others and 
may be looked upon as probably the oldest butter- 
fly known. These two oligocene localities share be- 
tween them a dozen butterflies, not to mention a 
caterpillar from Aix which has been considered 
that of a butterfly. Rott, the next oldest (lower 
miocene), has furnished but one butterfly; and 
Radoboj (middle miocene) the remaining three. 



OF THE PAST 269 

Three of the four families of butterflies are repre- 
sented in this meagre little collection, the smaller 
butterflies of the family Lycaenidae being unknown 
in a fossil state in the rocks, though it is rather 
vaguely reported that they have been found in 
amber. The largest number (ten) are Nymphali- 
dae, the next (four) Papilionidae, while the Hes- 
peridae have only two representatives. All but 
one of the eight American species, however, be- 
long to the Nymphalidae ; that exception to the 
Papilionidae. 

These meagre statistics may have a certain inter- 
est ; but it is of more importance to inquire how far 
the fossils differ from existing forms, and what 
they teach us. For this purpose let us briefly 
examine the European and American forms sepa- 
rately, turning our attention first to the European 
species, but omitting the caterpillar from Aix, 
which is thought to be one of the Satyrinae, to 
which sub-family two of the five Aix specimens 
belong. 

To begin at the top of the series, we have first 
these two Satyrids, Neorinopis and Lethites, a 
group now represented by the dark brown butter- 
flies of our meadows and groves ; the nearest allies 
of both of these are now restricted to the Indo- 



270 BUTTERFLIES 

Malayan region, and are much more gayly attired 
than the present sombre representative of the sub- 
family in Europe. Their food in the larval state 
has invariably been found to be either grasses or, 
occasionally, with the more arctic or alpine forms, 
sedges. In the Aix deposits, as in the Indo-Ma- 
layan region to-day, these plants are numerically 
unimportant, so that if we may form any opinion 
from such meagre data, we find that while oligocene 
Aix had a European proportion of Satyr ids, they 
were composed of species of an Indian aspect and 
fed upon plants characteristically temperate, but, 
as in tropical countries, numerically unimportant. 

The remaining Nymphalid is the Eugonia from 
Badoboj. This is more nearly related than any 
other to the mass of the Florissant fossils. It 
belongs to an existing genus, represented to-day 
equally in Europe and North America, but with 
a fuller development of neighboring genera in the 
New World, showing that its affinities are rather 
with the New than with the Old World ; its food 
in early life was probably some species of elm, 
willow, poplar, or birch, and species of all these 
genera have been found in the same beds. 

Passing to the Papilionidae we find three Pieri- 
nae and one of the Papilioninae ; two of the three 



OF THE PAST 271 

Pierinae are allied to our common Brimstone-yel- 
low butterflies, and the tliird to our White-spotted 
Cabbage butterflies. The former, however, My- 
lothrites and CoHates, belong to distinctly tropical 
types, referable again to the Indo- Malayan or 
Austro-Malayan regions ; their larvae doubtless 
fed on leguminous plants, which have been found 
in abundance both at Aix and Radoboj, from which 
these species come. The white butterfly belongs 
to the existing genus Pontia, whose present geo- 
graphical relations are almost precisely those of 
Eugonia mentioned above, though the genus itself 
is far better represented to-day in Europe than in 
America ; their larvae feed generally on Crucif erae, 
but these are plants of a nature hardly admitting 
of preservation in a fossil state and are excessively 
rare in the European tertiaries ; none have been 
found at Radoboj, whence this butterfly comes, the 
most closely allied being a species of Terminalia. 

The Papilionid is an interesting insect belonging 
to a striking and rather aberrant group. From 
its affinities to the existing Thais, it is called 
Thaites. Thais is confined to-day to the Mediter- 
ranean district, within which Aix, its place of de- 
posit, belongs. It probably fed on Aristolochia, 
and while this genus of plants has not yet been 



272 BUTTERFLIES 

found at Aix, it is found in other European terti- 
ary deposits, and according to the late Marquis 
Saporta, the principal student of the fossil plants 
of Aix, " Ce genre devait y exister." 

There are left the two Hesperidae, — a family 
not rej)resented in the American rocks. One of 
these, Thanatites from Rott, belongs to the tribe 
Hesperini and is closely related to Thanaos, a 
genus found in the north temperate zones of both 
hemispheres, but vastly more developed in the 
New World, which has at least four times as many 
species as the Old, some of them extending into 
the sub-tropical regions; the adjacent genera are 
purely American, although tropical or sub-tropical, 
and therefore Thanatites looks toward sub-tropical 
North America for its prevailing affinities. En- 
tirely the same is the case with Pamphilites of 
Aix, a butterfly belonging to the other tribe of 
Hesperidae. The food plant of both these butter- 
flies was very probably Legiiminosae, which occur 
in abundance both at Rott and at Aix. 

The aUies therefore of nearly one half of the 
European fossil butterflies are to be looked for in 
the East Indies ; of one third of them in America, 
and especially sub-tropical America ; of the remain- 
der, at home ; but, as among other insects and 





FOSSIL BUTTERFLIES 



OF THE PAST 273 

among tlie plants, there is a growing likeness to 
American types as we pass upward through the 
tertiaries. 

The American fossil butterflies, fewer in num- 
ber, less varied in character, and all from one 
locality, Florissant, are more quickly reviewed. 
They all belong to extinct genera. Seven of the 
eight belong to the Nymphalidae, and all but two 
of these to a single tribe, Yanessini, of the sub- 
family Nymphalinae. Of these, three, Prodryas, 
Jupiteria, and Lithopsyche, form a group by them- 
selves, more closely allied to one another than to 
any living forms, but having distinct affinities to 
certain butterflies of Central and generally sub- 
tropical America. A fourth, Nymphalites, is re- 
lated to them, though not very closely, and it, too, 
finds closer relations among Central American 
butterflies. The fifth, Apanthesis, is still farther 
removed, and is related, as closely as to anything, 
to a tropical American group of butterflies geo- 
graphically isolated, all of its immediate relations 
being East Indian. Of none of the butterflies to 
which all of these Nymphalinae are allied is the 
food plant of the caterpillar known. 

The other Nymphalids, Prolibythea and Barba- 
rothea, are of special interest, for they belong to 



274 BUTTERFLIES 

the curious sub-family Libytheinae of whicb only a 
dozen species are now known, and these scattered 
all over the globe. No group of butterflies exists 
with so many anomalies of structure ; none, so far 
removed from its nearest neighbors, which is any- 
where nearly so poverty-stricken in forms. It is a 
clear case of a waning type ; and that out of the 
paltry dozen or two of fossil butterflies two should 
be found to belong to -a group which cannot num- 
ber one tenth of one per cent, of living forms is 
indeed a surprise. It has a further interest, for 
the existing Old World forms of this group and 
those of the New are separated by characters which 
are unmistakably combined in these fossils, though 
on the whole their relations are closer with the Old 
World than the living New World type, and spe- 
cially with a form from West Africa. The group 
as a whole is distinctly tropical and sub-tropical 
and widespread, so that the sub-tropical aspect of 
the previously mentioned Florissant forms is not 
disturbed. The food of the caterpillar, as far as 
known, is exclusively Celtis, and it is therefore 
interesting to note that Lesquereux has found 
among the fossil plants of Florissant, in the same 
beds with these fossils, two perfectly well pre- 
served leaves of a very fine Celtis, whose generic 



OF THE PAST 275 

relations are unquestionable ; with them were also 
found fragments of flowers which could have been 
readily admitted as of the same species. It is 
therefore highly probable that Prolibythea vaga- 
bunda and Barbarothea florissanti fed on Celtis 
maccoshi. 

The last American fossil is Stolopsyche, one of 
the Pierini, more nearly allied to Pieris than to 
any other, but not very closely allied ; wherein it 
departs from it, it approaches some sub-tropical 
forms. Little can be said of it, and nothing can 
safely be surmised of its food plant. 

The aspect of the Florissant butterfly faiuia is 
therefore distinctly southern ; and while tertiary 
America does not fully return the compliment ter- 
tiary Europe seems to pay it, there is a certain 
Old World aspect in the representatives of that 
gypsy-type, the Libytheinae. 

There are one or two points further in our 
American fossil butterflies which it is interesting 
to note. In two or three of them the structure of 
the front legs can be determined, and we are able 
to note that in this oligocene time, among the ear- 
liest butterflies that have come down to us, we 
have the same structure of the fore leg in the 
female Libytheinae that we have to-day ; while at 



276 BUTTERFLIES OF THE PAST 

tlie same time the atrophy of the male fore legs is 
shown to have reached in Nymphalites the same 
stage which it now possesses. In other words, the 
developmental plane of butterflies appears to have 
been the same in those days as now. 

On the other hand, there are some marks of a 
lesser degree of development in one of our fossils, 
in the character of the ornamentation ; for Pro- 
dryas has fore wings which in form, proportions, 
and markings would be taken at once for those of an 
Hesperian, the lowest, rather than of a Nymphalid, 
the highest, of butterflies ; the markings of the 
hind wings are, however, distinctly Nymphalideous, 
though some tropical American Hesperidae have 
some features nearly resembling them. A greater 
simplicity of markings than is common to their 
existing relatives is also seen in Neorinopis and 
Apanthesis. 



INDEX TO NAMES OF INSECTS 



Acanthosoma nebulosa, 80. 

Acraeinae, 16. 

Ageronia, 52, 88, 92, 93, 94, 95, 168, 

240. 
Aglais milberti, 39, 42, 43, 76, 81, 143, 

246. 
Aglais urticae, 66, 69, 90, 246, 258. 
Agriades, 146, 213. 
Agrotis carnea, 150. 
Agrotis imperita, 150. 
Agrotis islandica, 150. 
Amblyscirtes samoset, 79. 
Amblyscirtes vialis, 79. 
Anosia, 116, 217. 
Aiiosia plexippus, 10, 19, 41, 125, 141, 

143, 158, 169, 185, 189, 192, 253. 
Anthocharini, 260. 
Anthocharis, 157. 
Antirrhea, 167. 
Apauthesis, 273, 276. 
lAporia crataegi, 119. 
Apostraphia charithonia, 182. 
Argynnini, 38, 43, 48, 98, 157, 217, 

221, 222, 229, 260. 
Argynnis, 124, 169, 229. 
Ai-gynnis atlantis, 76, 81, 169. 

Barbarothea, 273. 
Barbarothea florissanti, 275. 
Basilarchia, 9, 22, 41, 44, 155, 161, 198, 

214, 230. 
Basilarchia archippus, 9, 19, 74, 80, 

81, 106. 
Basilarchia arthemis, 73, 81, 125. 
Basilarchia astyanax, 10, 20. 
Basilarchia eros, 19. 
Bibio femoratus, 80. 
Bombycidae, 174. 
Brassolinae, 168. 
Breiithis, 53, 85, 89, 95, 147, 152, 213, 

228, 229, 230. 
Brenthis bellona, 76, 81. 
Brenthis montinus, 82, 84, 246. 
Brenthis myrina, 76, 81. 

Callidryas, 165, 170. 



Callidryas eubule, 144, 171. 
CaUophrys rubi, 97, 99. 
Calosoma, 190. 
Catonephele, 241. 
Catopsilia, 166. 
Ceratinia, 51. 

Cercyonis alope, 44, 123, 182. 
Charaxes, 169. 
Chlorippe celtis, 188. 
Chlorippe clyton, 43. 
Chrysophanini, 77, 218, 225, 229. 
Chrysophanus, 48. 
Chrysophanus thoe, 218. 
Cinclidia, 105. 

Cinclidia harrisii, 41, 42, 76, 77, 158. 
Cissia eurytus, 121. 
Coccinella, 61. 
Coenonj'mpha, 213, 214. 
Colias edusa, 190. 
Colias rhamni, 143. 
Coliates, 268, 271. 
Cupido, 213, 214. 
Cyaniris, 77, 210, 223. 
Cyaniris argiolus, 209. 
Cyaniris pseudargiolus, 77, 80, 81, 170, 
182, 189, 209, 221. 

Dasyophthalma, 168. 
Didonis, 52, 165, 168. 
Dircenna, 51. 

Enodia portlandia, 121. 

Epicalia, 224. 

Epidemia, 213. 

Epidemia epixanthe, 218. 

Erebia, 85, 86, 146, 213, 214. 

Ergolis, 220. 

Erora laeta, 218. 

Erynnis, 213. 

Erynnis comma, 214. 

Eueides, 64. 

Eugouia, 133, 212, 267, 270, 271. 

Eugonia j.-album, 43, 75, 80, 81, 143, 

188. 
Eugonia vau-albuin, 212. 
Euuica, 92. 



278 INDEX TO NAMES OF INSECTS 



Euphoeades, 158, 237. 
Euphoeades palamedes, 111. 
-Euphoeades troilus, 40, 44, 161, 189. 
Euphydryas, 105. 
Euphydryas phaeton, 76, 77. 
Euploeinae, 13, 18, 37, 164. 
Euptoieta claudia, 158. 
Eurema lisa, 157, 191. 
Eurymus, 61, 85, 86, 124, 146, 155, 

213, 222. 
Eurymus eurytheme, 44, 247. 
Eurymus interior, 78. 
Eurymus philodice, 77, 125, 182, 222, 

247. 
Euvanessa antiopa, 42, 58, 75, 81, 86, 

91, 92, 101, 131, 140, 142, 143, 189, 

190, 207, 208. 
Everes amyntas, 246. 
Everes comyntas, 246. 

Feniseca, 201. 
Feniseca tarquinius, 77. 

Grapta, 123. 

Hamadryas, 208. 

Hamadryas io, 91, 141. 

Heliconii, 4. 

Heliconinae, 3, 165. 

Heodes, 117, 209, 210. 

Heodes hypophlaeas, 77, 124, 125, 182, 

183, 209. 
Heodes phlaeas, 209. 
Heraclides cresphontes, 161. 
Hesperidae, 40, 41, 49, 50, 85, 86, 136, 

143, 200, 201, 204, 205, 269, 272, 276. 
Hesperini, 40, 49, 102, 109, 111, 116, 

166, 217, 272. 
Hypatus bachmanii, 40, 144. 

Ichneumonidae, 68. 
Incisalia uiphon, 81. 
Iphiclides, 158. 
Iphiclides ajax, 70, 247. 
Iphiclides podalirius, 247. 
Ithomyia, 3, 5, 51. 
Ithomyiui, 165. 

Jasoniades, 48, 158, 236, 237. 
Jasonlades glaucus, 40, 51, 78, 81, 125, 

157, 223, 243. 
Junouia coenia, 39, 124, 144. 
Jupiteria, 273. 

Laertias, 158, 172. 

Laertias philenor, 39, 41, 43, 130, 131, 

158. 
Lemonias, 213, 214. 
Leptalides, 3, 14. 
Leptalis, 170. 
Lethites, 269. 
Libytheiuae, 274, 275. 



Limochores taumas, 81. 

Lithopsyche, 273. 

Lycaenidae, 49, 96, 100, 117, 119, 128, 

143, 204, 269. 
Lycaeninae, 45, 48, 97, 136, 200, 201, 

205, 260, 263, 266. 
Lycaeniui, 48, 77, 85, 86, 136, 170, 222, 

263, 266. 

Mancipium brassicae, 66, 172, 173. 

Mechauitis, 51. 

Melete, 165, 166, 171. 

Melitaeini, 39, 40, 43, 76, 85, 86, 110, 

229. 
Morpiiinae, 165, 166, 167. 
Morpho, 91. 
Mylothrites, 271. 

Neorinopsis, 269, 276. 

Nephila, 5. 

Notodonta, 28. 

Nymphalidae, 42, 49, 64, 93, 99, 115, 

119, 131, 143, 189, 220, 239, 269, 273, 

276. 
Nymphalinae, 18, 48, 52, 76, 98, 131, 

165, 166, 168, 273. 
Nymphalini, 76, 136. 
Nymphalites, 273, 276. 

Oeneis, 85, 86, 146, 147, 151, 153, 173, 

210, 211, 213. 
Oeneis jutta, 121, 210. 
Oeneis macounii, 155. 
Oeneis noma, 172. 
Oeneis semidea, 81, 83, 125, 135, 137, 

211. 
Oruithoptera, 114. 

Pamphila, 212. 

Pamphila mandan, 78, 212. 

Pamphilini, 40, 48, 49, 60, 103, 109, 

114, 117, 118, 136, 156, 217, 223, 

236. 
Pamphilites, 272. 
Papilio, 123, 158, 213, 236. 
Papilio machaon, 159, 173. 
Papilio polyxenes, 159, 219, 243. 
Papilionidae, 49, 119, 127, 143, 269, 

270, 271. 
Papilioninae, 46, 48, 116, 155, 160, 161, 

171, 198, 204, 205, 240, 270. 
Parnassini, 117. 
Parnassius, 85, 86, 213, 214. 
Parnassius apoUo, 93. 
Phyciodes, 214. 
Phyciodes batesii, 76. 
Phyciodes tharos, 52, 76, 81. 
Pierinae, 3, 49, 69, 70, 77, 100, 115, 

165, 166, 170, 191, 203, 270, 271. 
Pierini, 157, 260, 275. 
Pieris, 171, 212, 258, 275. 
Pieris napi, 171, 212. 



INDEX TO NAMES OF INSECTS 



2T9 



Pieris oleracea, 78, 124, 171, 212. 
Pieris rapae, 66, 78, 81, 129, 171, 191, 

192, 207, 212. 
Polygonia, 39, 80, 110, 129, 143. 
Polygonia c. -album, 141, 211. 
Polygonia faimus, 39, 74, 75, 81, 92, 

102, 161, 211. 
Polygonia gracilis, 75, 81. 
Polygonia interrogationis, 81. 
Polygonia progne, 43, 75. 
Poutia, 213, 267, 271. 
Pontia daplidice, 247. 
Poutia protodice, 247. 
Prepona, 166. 
Prodryas, 273, 276. 
Prolibythea, 273. 
Prolibythea vagabunda, 275. 

Rhodocerini, 49, 143, 144, 157, 217, 

222, 2G0. 
Rusticus aegon, 246. 
Rusticus argus, 246. 
Rusticus scudderi, 247. 

Satyrinae, 38, 43, 48, 53, 110, 111, 116, 
121, 124, 135, 156, 167, 190, 199,217, 
235, 260, 269, 270. 

Semnopsyche diana, 20, 37, 219, 221, 
222. 



Speyeria, 115. 
Stichophthalma, 167. 
Stolopsyche, 275. 
Strymon titus, 40. 

Tasitia berenice, 19. 

Thais, 111, 271. 

Thais polyxena, 173. 

Thaites, 271. 

Thanaos, 272. 

Thanaos icelus, 79, 81. 

Thanatites, 272. 

Thaumantis, 91, 166. 

Theclini, 48, 77, 110, 139, 170, 217, 

229, 264. 
Thymelicus brettus, 219, 223. 
Thyrldia, 51. 
Tomares ballus, 264. 

Vanessa, 39, 123, 144, 208. 

Vanessa atalanta, 41, 59, 86, 98, 102, 

104, 122, 189, 207, 209. 
Vanessa cardui, 58, 86, 104, 189, 207, 

209, 218, 245, 253. 
Vanessa huntera, 40, 105, 189, 217. 
Vanessini, 48, 68, 69, 89, 94, 121, 139, 

143, 156, 273. 

Xanthidia nioippe, 144. 



WORKS ON BUTTERFLIES 

By 
SAMUEL HUBBARD SCUDDER 

CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



The Butterflies of the Eastern United States 

and Canada, ^vith special reference to New England. 
Illustrated with 96 plates, maps, etc. 3 vols., royal 
8vo, half levant, $75.00, net. 

This work describes in detail all the butterflies 
known to occur in North America east of the Missis- 
sippi, excepting such as are found only in the unsettled 
parts of Canada or south of Kentucky and Virginia. 
It contains 96 plates (41 colored), containing about 
2,000 figures of butterflies (17 pi.), eggs (6), cater- 
pillars (11), nests (2), chrysalids (3), parasites (2), 
structural details (33), maps and groups of maps to 
illustrate geographical distribution (19), and portraits 
(3). The text contains about 2,000 pages. Special 
attention is paid to the distribution, habits, and life- 
histories of our butterflies ; and careful descriptions 
are given of every stage of life, not only for the spe- 
cies, but for the genera and higher groups wherever 
the data are attainable. Analytical tables applicable 
to every stage (a feature never before attempted in a 
work of this kind) are introduced wherever possible. 
Seventy-six essays scattered through the work discuss 
such special questions as arise in studying butterflies, 
and in themselves form a complete treatise on the life 
of these insects. 

ISIuch light is thrown upon almost every point relating to but- 
terflies, and it is unquestionably the profoundest and most able 
work yet published on this section of the Lepidoptera. — Dr. T. 
A. Chapman, Entomologists' Record, London. 

We wish to express our admiration not merely for the scholarly 
attainments brought to bear upon Mr. Scudder's work and the 



magnificent results achieved, but for the example of patient, con- 
scientious labor. This sumptuous book, so delightful to the eye 
through the extraordinary beauty of its illustrations, so rich in 
learning, and so agreeable in its excursions into the philosophic 
study of entomology, is a noble witness to a scientific purpose 
early conceived, developed amid many difiiculties, and brought 
to a conclusion only after years of resolute toil and steadfast 
endurance. — Atlantic Monthly. 

C'est ici I'oeuvre de toute une vie, et d'une vie plein d'un 
labeur patient et attentif. Labeur non seulement de cabinet, 
mais labeur de naturaliste qui court laplaine et les bois, familier 
avec les moeurs des animaux, ardent a les poursuivre, a en elu- 
cider la biologic. . . . GEuvre superbe de typographic et de 
gravure, telle que la pouvaient executer les Americains, le tra- 
vail de M. Scudder est un monument d'erudition et de labeur 
personnel qui ne sera point egale de longtemps. Et s'il se trouve 
quelquefois des ecrivains pour faire aussi biens, il ne s'en ren- 
contrera point pour faire mieux. M. Scudder a eu le bonheur 
rare d'acheverune oeuvre immense, quidurera, dont nulle biblio- 
theque de lepidopterologue ne pourra se passer, et c[ui merite la 
sincere admiration des naturalistes. Nous sommes heureux de. 
pouvoir le dire hautement. — Revue scientifiqiie, Paris. 

The history of Semidea, as related by Mr. Scudder, mostly 
from his personal observations, is worth the price of the whole 
work ; and I recommend every person interested in butterflies 
to make it a part of their library without delay. I differ with 
Mr. Scudder radically about many things, . . . but in other im- 
portant and essential points this work of his is and will forever 
remain unapproachable. The wealth of illustration is amazing, 
not only of the butterflies themselves, but of every part and 
organ of them, and what has never been attempted before ex- 
cept on a limited scale, the eggs and young larvae are shown in 
greatly magnified and admirably executed figures. . . . For these 
matters and the anatomical details, worked out with wonderful 
ability, and the life histories and distribution worked out with 
exceeding care, the " Butterflies of New England " will be a 
standard work, and no student can possibly get along without it. 
— W. H. Edwards, Canadian Entomologist. 

Many important works on butterflies have been published 
lately, both in English and in German, but Mr. Scudder may 
fairly claim to have beaten the record. We do not hesitate to 
say that no work at all approaching the present in its compre- 
hensive and exhaustive character has ever been published on the 
butterflies of any country. — W. F. Kirby, Knowledge, London. 

Die Vollendung dieser neuesten und bedeutendsten Arbeit 
des hochverdienten Verfassers hat die entomologische Literatur 
mit einem Werke bereichert, welches nach gross- und einenar- 
tigem Plane angelegt und ausgefuhrt in Wahrheit einzig in 
seiner Art — in guten Sinne — genannt werden darf . Es be- 
schrankt sich nicht darauf, eine Fauna in gewohnlichen Sinne 
zu sein, wenn es auch in dieser Beziehung de^a weitestgehenden 



Ansprlichen gerecht wircl ; es schildert von dieser faunistischen 
Basis ausgehend den Schmetterling im allgemeinen und be- 
sonderen, in Wort und Bild, nach alien irgendwie in Betracht 
kommenden Verhaltnissen ... in so eingehender und umfas- 
sender Weise, wie sie sonst kaum in monographischen Arbeiten 
geboten wird, erweitert nach vielen Richtungen unsere Kennt- 
nisse und -wird so zu einer ergiebigen Fundgrube flir die "\Vis- 
senschaft vom Schmetterlinge und seinem Leben iiberhaupt. — 
Dr. A. Speyer, Entomologische A^achi'ichten, Berlin. 

No work has ever appeared, in any branch of science, where 
such thorough and complete information is given of the objects 
discussed, nor which has been so copiously and accurately illus- 
trated. . . . The illustrations are most profuse, superbly exe- 
cuted ; and each is accompanied by copious explanator}' text. — 
James Fletcher, Canadian Ejitomologist. 

This is perhaps the most remarkable work on butterflies which 
has ever been published. . . This most valuable work . . . 
will take a high place among biological monographs, and will 
rank ... as one of the most important, beautiful, and pains- 
taking books which America has ever produced. — H. J. Elwes, 
Nature, London. 

Marked by a breadth and minuteness of observation which 
are almost unrivaled. . . . The plates illustrating butterflies in 
color are marvels of accuracy as well as of gorgeous yet delicate 
hues. — Critic. 

Published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 

4 Fa?'k St., Boston. 



Frail Children of the Air : Excursions into 
the World of Butterflies, viii, 279 pp., 9 pi., i2mo, 
cloth, ^1.50. 

These excursions are a small selection for the gen- 
eral reader of those published in a scattered form in 
the author's larger work on the Butterflies of the 
Eastern United States. As far as possible they have 
been divested of technical detail and in many cases 
revised or extended. In their original form they were 
specially mentioned in some of the notices of the 
larger work, as follows : — 

These [essays] cannot fail to do much toward stimulating the 
study of entomology in a thoughtful and scholarly way. The 
student who has read them will cease to look upon butterflies as 
merely beautiful specimens, to be pinned and admired for their 
markings. Instead, he will find in these insects illustrations of 
many of the more interesting phenomena with which the natu- 
ralist has to deal. — Atlantic Monthly. 

Chacun de ces chapitres est d'un interet puissant, grace a 
I'etendue des connaissances de I'auteur. — Revue scientifiqtie^ 
Paris. 

These [excursuses] discuss separately all the interesting prob- 
lems which arise in the study of butterflies (whether of dis- 
tribution, structure, history, or relation to the outer world), in 
themselves forming a complete treatise on the life of these in- 
sects. These will be a charming feature of the work. — James 
Fletcher, Canadian E^itomologist. 

These incidental discussions . . . are written in an easy popu- 
lar style and will probably interest many readers who may not 
care to go deeply into . . . lengthy technical details. — W. F. 
KiRBY, Knowledge, London. 

In eigenthiimlicher, weit liber den Rahmen einer bloss fauni- 
stischen Arbeit hinausgehenden Weise hat der Verfasser in einer 
langen R^ihe (76) gesonderter . . . Aufsatze die mannigfachsten 
Themata allgemeineren Inhalts besprochen, die fUr das Studium 
des Schmetterlings von Bedeutung sind. Sie bilden zusammen- 
genommen in der That einer fast vollstandige Abhandlung iiber 
die gesammte Naturgeschichte dieser Thiere in mehr oder min- 
der vollstandiger, das Interesse des Lesers fesselnder und sein 
Nachdenken auregender Weise. — Dr. A. Speyer, Entomolo- 
gische N^achrichten, Berlin. 

Fiiblished by Houghton^ Mifflin 6^ Co., 

4 Park Sf., Bosto7i, 

5 



Butterflies : Their Structure, Changes, and 
Life-histories with special reference to American 
Forms ; being an application of the " Doctrine of 
Descent to the Study of Butterflies." With an Ap- 
pendix of practical instructions, x, 322 pp., i2mo, 
201 figures, cloth, $1.50. 

In this book we have a very successful attempt at a thorough 
study of the butterflies of a limited region, not only from the 
point of view of the structure of the winged insects, but also of 
their transformation ; and the author does not stop here where 
many books on butterflies would naturally end, but in the light 
of modern biological science he leads the student to observe 
their habits, their seasonal changes and histories, their styles of 
coloration, the sexual differences in coloring and structure, and 
the probable reasons for such diversity. ... In the preparation 
of these chapters, the author has evidently drawn very largely 
on knowledge acquired through his individual observations, pur- 
sued for a number of years. So far from being in any sense a 
compilation, it is a fresh and original treatment of a most in- 
teresting theme, replete with many facts heretofore unpublished 
and unknown to the scientific public. — Avicj-ican Naturalist. 

In his present work Mr. Scudder lets us into some of the 
secrets of Nature in the production of butterflies, and enables 
almost any one to follow, though still at some distance, the 
mysterious procedure. . . . Not only is it a useful compendium 
of what has been published in scientific periodicals by different 
students, but it abounds in original suggestions of great impor- 
tance. — The Critic. 

This beautiful volume is not a systematic catalogue or de- 
scriptive list of the butterflies of any specified locahties, but a 
careful and comprehensive treatise upon this particular form of 
insect life. The work is thoroughly well done. Clear and vivid 
impressions acquired by personal and enthusiastic research have 
enabled the author to write in a fresh and pictorial style, an ac- 
complishment which is rarely attained by writers who get their 
facts second hand. His vocabulary is less violently technical 
than is usual in works of genuine scientific worth. . . . The 
illustrations are excellent, the reproductions being taken from 
the best American plates, while the new ones are vigorous and 
accurate. In the two hundred figures, fifty different species are 
shown as butterflies, while at least seventy species are pictured 
in some stage of growth, which is a large proportion, probably 

6 



nine tenths, of those which the ordinary student will find in a 
given locality. . . . Practical directions for constructing breed- 
ing-cages and other appliances to assist in rearing butterflies 
from the egg, as well as instructions for collecting, preparing, 
and preserving specimens in every stage of development for 
future comparison and study, are given in an appendix. The 
student will be materially aided, too, by a hst of the plants on 
which the different species of American caterpillars feed. — N. 
Y. Tribune. 

This fascinating book. . . . An entire number of the " Jour- 
nal of Science " w^ould not suffice for the worthy exposition of 
its views. We can only hope that the specimens we have given 
will lead our readers to study it for themselves. — Journal of 
Science, London. 

Published by Henry Holt &' Co., 
29 West 23^ St., New York. 

7 



Brief Guide to the commoner Butterflies of 

the Northern United States and Canada. Being an 
Introduction to a Knowledge of their Life His- 
tories, xii, 206 pp., i2mo, cloth, $1.25. 

The author has selected for treatment the butter- 
flies, less than one hundred in number, which would 
be almost surely met with by an industrious collector 
in the course of a year's or two years' work in our 
Northern States east of the Great Plains, and in 
Canada. To the descriptions of the different species, 
in their most obvious stages, with apparatus for iden- 
tifying them, has been added an account of some of 
the curious facts concerning their periodicity and their 
habits of life. A short introduction to the study of 
butterflies in general is prefixed to the body of the 
work, which is followed by a brief account of the 
principal literature of the subject. 

Those who know the thorough character of Dr. Scudder's 
work will not be surprised to learn that even within the narrow 
limits laid down the book contains a far larger amount of gen- 
eral information than would be found in almost any popular 
European manual on a similar subject. — W. F. KiRBY, NaUwe, 
London. 

IMr. Scudder's Brief Guide will, we believe, be the means of 
inducing many to take up the study of butterflies, who have been 
prevented from doing so for want of a suitable and accurate 
book. — Ottatva N'atiiralist. 

This little book, from the author of one of the best scientific 
books on Lepidoptera ever published for the general reader, is 
in itself quite unique and would form a good model for a similar 
little treatise on our own British butterflies. . . . The " Intro- 
duction " consists of a series of short articles . . . written in 
popular form . . . their simplicity making them especially valu- 
able to less advanced students who are seeking for light. But 
to us the most important part of the work is the series of scien- 
tific classificatory tables. — Entomologists'' Record, London. 

There are few objects in nature which so soon thrust them- 
selves upon the notice of young people as flowers and insects, 
and of these none have been so useful as a first stepping stone 
or allurement to the realms of Natural History as butterflies. 
. . . There was not, however, until now, any work which could 

8 



be placed in the hands of bo5's or girls who had caught a com- 
mon butterfly, by means of which they could identify and find 
out something of the life history of their newly found treasure. 
This want Mr. Scudder has filled. . . . The introductory chap- 
ters upon some of the points which will present themselves to a 
beginner are excellent ; concise, clearly expressed, and accurate. 
— Canadian EntoiTiologist. 

A very convenient manual for the young collector and an in- 
telligent introduction to a delightful study. — Atlantic Monthly. 

This . . . volume is of course mainly of interest to American 
readers, but from its method of treatment it will be useful to 
European students, and there is a common specific element, 
slight though it be, in the butterflies of the two continents. — 
Ento?}iol agists' Monthly Magazine, London. 

Well adapted by its untechnical style and language for the 
perusal of the general reader. — Detroit Free Press. 

The butterfly is defined and its habits explained in simple, 
clear, and attractive language. . . . The work is admirable in 
every way. — Hartford Conrant. 

No one interested in the subject can be otherwise than well 
pleased with the extent and variety of information, the clearness 
of statement, the careful classification, and the helpful explana- 
tions and instructions for collecting, etc., which its enthusiastic 
author and compiler have provided for him. — Toronto Week. 

Calculated to be very attractive to lovers of entomology. — 
Review of Reviews. 

Will be found most valuable. — Philadelphia Times. 

Published by Henry Holt &= Co.., 
29 IVest 22id St., New York. 



The Life of a Butterfly. A Chapter in Nat- 
ural History for the General Reader. i86 pp., 4 pi., 
i6mo, cloth, $1.00. 

I have tried to present in untechnical language the 
story of the life of one of our most conspicuous Amer- 
ican butterflies {Anosia plexippus). At the same time, 
by introducing into the account of its anatomy, de- 
velopment, distribution, enemies, and seasonal changes 
some comparisons with the more or less dissimilar 
structure and life of other butterflies, and particularly 
of our native forms, I have endeavored to give . . . 
a general account of the lives of the whole tribe. — 
Extract from Preface. 

This charming little volume is written in a style so untech- 
nical that the general reader, to whom it is addressed, will find 
no difficulty in understanding it, and will be both interested and 
instructed. To the British reader, even if he be a scientific 
entomologist, the book will be very welcome. . . . The book 
may be recommended to all who cultivate a taste for philosoph- 
ical natural history. — The Entomologist, London. 

This book should be a great service to the beginner, as it is 
very entertainingly and instructively written. — Entomological 
News, Philadelphia. 

INlr. Scudder has written in untechnical language a charming 
little book, in which while recounting the life-history of the 
Milk-weed Butterfly, he compares it with other species and suc- 
ceeds in condensing into a remarkably short space an account 
of the most interesting features in the lives of the whole tribe 
of butterflies. . . . We recommend it heartily to all boys and 
girls of healthy mind, to naturalists, and thoughtful readers. — 
Ottawa A^Unralist. 

He has taken the milk-weed butterfly and followed it through 
life, making each stage furnish a text for a liberal study, one 
may say, of all butterfly life at that stage. It is a most enjoy- 
able little work, and gives a glimpse of what is possible in our 
natural history literature when precise knowledge is joined to a 
power of seeing and presenting relations of a single type. — 
Atlantic Mont/ily. 

We have, of course, an introduction and other chapters that 
would answer to almost any species ; but the type taken as ex- 
pository is Anosia plexippus, and when treating more especially 
on this the author contrives to give, in a short chapter, an ac- 
count of its extraordinary migrations within the last half century. 

10 



The chapter entitled " A Lesson in Classification " may be read 
with interest. — Entomologists' Monthly Alagazine, London. 

Ought to be read by every boy and girl in America. — G. M. 
Brown, Scie^ice Teacher in Oshkosh ( Wis.) State Normal 
School. 

A fascinating account of its typical life from the egg to per- 
fected form. . . . Will furnish particularly fresh and interesting 
knowledge to most uninitiated readers. — Review of Reviews. 

To every boy or girl who turns its pages it will prove a verita- 
ble mine of delight and education. — Boston Traveler. 

Pleasingly free from technical terms, and so full of incident 
as to be of great interest. — Springfield Republican. 

Is a desideratum to the beginner who does not care to enter 
into the study scientifically. — Boston Advertiser. 

Extremely interesting. . . . Just the thing to be put into the 
hands of the young. — Hartford Co2irant. 

Describes the main events in the life of the milk-weed but- 
terfly clearly and at the same time comprehensively. — Toro7ito 
Week. 

Of all branches of natural history there is none more attrac- 
tive and that can furnish more gratification to a young student 
than can be derived from the study of familiar butterflies. . . . 
Mr. Scudder's little book will excite interest in the whole sub- 
ject and open his eyes to an undreamed of significance in these 
frail children of the air. — Philadelphia Times. 

Published by Henry Holt 6^ Co.., 

29 West 22id St., New York. 

II 



Fossil Butterflies. Memoirs of the Amer- 
ican Association for the Advancement of Science. 
i. 4to, loopp., 3 plates, paper, $2.00. Fiiblished by 
the American Association for the Advancement of 
Science, Salem, Mass. 

Historical Sketch of the Generic Names 

proposed for Butterflies: A contribution to Sys- 
tematic Nomenclature. 8vo, 203 pp., paper, $1.00. 
Sotd by the Cambridge Entomological Club, Cam- 
bridge, Mass. 



IN PREPARATION. 

A Students' Manual of the Butterflies of 

North America, north of Mexico. 

Prepared on a plan similar to that of Gray's Man- 
ual of Botany, it will describe all the known species 
of North America, north of our southern boundary, 
and wall treat the early stages, when known, in the 
same manner as the imago. A fragment of it was 
published in the Proceedings of the American Acad- 
emy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 27. It will be pre- 
ceded by an extended Introduction to the Study of 
Butterflies. 




12 



